web site and search engines

[scooby]

I'm new to web site developement and hosting and was wondering what the best way to get your site listed on the major search engines is?

Do I contacts sites like google?

Thanks

[mairving]

You can ask to be added to Google's index. They are a bit slower at doing this than before. The best thing to do is to read these tips on search engine submission.

[scooby]

Thanks for the info. Recently got an e-mail from company saying they would help increase traffic via trafficmaster at a low rate.

Is it worth using a company like that?

Thanks

[rambler]

If you want to get hits, concentrate on the page title, ensure you've got the main keywords that categorise your site in it. Don't put any pretty characters in there - just plalin text. Using clever stuff like "meta name "keywords" content="all the keywords I can possibly think of that'll get a hit...." in your HTML is secondary to the main-line engines like Google.

I've just worked on a site where the title was (altered to protect the innocent and sensitive and my fee) "-------Bloggs Europe - credit and political risk insurance, indemnity and risk management--------" which ensured that a search on "Bloggs" or Management" didn't get a hit. I couldn't even get a hit on "-------Bloggs", but had to search on the full URL for Google to come up with anything.