Search Engine and Directory Submission

[taltos5a]

Hello fellow Canadian Store Owners,
I was wondering if any of you had come across a respectable company that has actually delivered the results that they promise to do search engine and directory submissions.
We unfortunately did fall into the Internet Advancement offer and after spending a lot of money,considering we are just starting out, to recieve no where near what they promissed.
So we are looking for a company that can do search engine and directory submissions on a monthly basis and even drive targeted useful traffic to our site.
Any suggestions or feed back on what you may of tried would be greatly appreciated.

[Christine]

SE submission are a fallacy, you can submit to directories but most customers on the web expect the SE to find you not you chase them. Once your site is optimized and the SE have found you via links to your site you will progress up the pages as your site is found to be most relevant to the keyword phrases that the customer is looking for. Any submissions will not make this happen.

[ritarobi_cwo]

To tell you the truth, most of those companies who are submitting for you, have a limited number of sites that they can submit to automatically unless you are trading internationally. Maybe consider a one time submission for unlimited submissions. You will find that they advertise for thousands of submissions - those are usually link farms and FFA's. The link farms and FFA's are not worth the traffic you get or the emails either.

If they promise manual submissions, you still should ask and approve who they are submitting you to.

Personally, the best thing which I found was to:
1) Submit on your own
2) Take advantage of some of the sites that will submit you to some SE and directories. Make sure that you don't re-submit to one like google, yahoo and msn, since they are major ones and you do not want to be taken off their lists. Although most store owners frown on this, this is one way to get your site started.
3) Find a reputable company that will submit for you. Some have reasonable costs. There are quite a few who do this as part of their web services for you as well as many people and postings on this forum that can give you advice.
4) Join link2me.com and linkmarket.com and linkpartners.com to exchange links with other sites
5) There is a post that has a lot of free places to get free press releases, etc. Pay no attention to the ieplexus link; it is the free info in the post that you should pay attention to http://www.onlinemerchantforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13257&highlight=ieplexus
6) I recently purchased some software "website promoter", "perfect accounting" by cosmi.com at Office Depot for 2 for $20 and a "website builder 7.5 by versacheck.com" for $1 at CompUSA before they closed in my area. I have not had a chance to open the boxes and look at any of them, so I can't tell you anything about them.

-Rita

[ritarobi_cwo]

Also, as Christine mentioned. The SE's will find you.

Make sure your pages are optimized so when they do find you, your site will rank well. Optimization is what will help move you up.

Add content relevant to your keywords on your pages. Write your pages for the people visiting your site.

When you write your press release - make sure you don't just advertise your product. You are trying to help people gain trust in your site. Perhaps, explain a little about who you are and why you started your ecommerce store.

-Rita

[Helen Turnbull]

I paid too much to Web Marketing Source and got into a frightening panic when I was unable to reach them using the tel. #s I had been given. I have a huge marketing budget of $00.00 - nothing, nil, nada, and the thought that I had been taken scared me badly. They touted great things and sent me to the FFA bunch. I am still clearing out emails I have unsubscribed. It seems my money was spent to do very little but give me a bad scare.

[Helen Turnbull]

I have had a very long conversation with Tax Club from New York. The opening was made to appear VERY important: I had an appointment set up in advance: and they used SOL as part of their company. When the 'appointment' was made it turns out that many of their customers are SOL merchants. For many of my dollars they would set up a business account, complete with a line of credit, have it registered in Nevada ( kind at tax time). I would speak with a lawyer, an accountant, a business manager. I would be connected with their Drop Shipper. I had no money available on my credit card (he was surprised I have only one) and he suggested I sell my first born to get the money (yes, that is an exaggeration but you get the point).
Well he phoned again on Tuesday when I did have some money in my credit card acct but would not take my 'No thank you'. He phoned back and sounded like a belligerent child: 'I don't understand' he kept saying. "It doesn't make any sense." It ended when I said 'I don't know how to make this any plainer, I don't want to sign up.'
It is really easy to get me to sign up for things that later I learn are unnecessary or much cheaper.
Shoshana here on the forum, has some great sites for freebies. It's her list that I refer to when I need a freebie. And it is this forum I turn to when I need help. These people are terrific.
All the best, Canada.
HelenE in Ontario

[RDLRachel]

Helen, I had the same experience with Tax Club this week. They called me twice. They tried to sell me their salad. They told me that as a Canadian merchant in order to succeed I would need to set up what they call a US Resident agent with a Tax number so that futur customers would be more attracted to buy through my US Storefront instead of Canadian as I am dealing with a US dropshipper. I asked them if that was ligit? They just said that they would take care of everything for me...and that they would make every effort to help me generate a six figure in sales per year if I would join their team, my cost would be only $3,000 up front. They also mentioned that their offices were in the Empire State Building...!!! Big deal! I am sure that they have good intentions to help, but I have some doubts.
Rachel from Ontario

[Helen Turnbull]

Well, aren't I the lucky girl!! I just spent 15 min on the phone with Denise from iePlexus. I came here to ask about iePlexus and look at what RitaRobi has said above. Thanks, Rita, you are a godsend.
HelenE

[ritarobi_cwo]

HelenE,

Always happy to be of help. I have learned so much from the forum members here. You will feel so much better when you do the work yourself. Then you will know for sure that you did it and not someone else.

If you optimize your pages and then work the press releases, blogs, link exchange and site submissions - you should notice some new traffic and conversions.

-Thanks,
-Rita

[konacoffeeguy]

I honestly do not know of any such sites.

I have had a web site 2 years at www.howtostartabakery.com and most of my hits or visitors have come as a result of writing articles at ezinearticles.com

Though earlier this year I did change a few things and added a few pages to link from the home page via a word or two and my Alexa rant shot up 60% or more. I was at 5 million almost 6 on Alexa and now my number is down to 1.35 million. Actually thats up because the lower the number the better off you are in Alexa rankings and its gotten even better since January when it was 1.9 million

[Marincky]

oh dear oh dear oh dear.... Please people PLEASE understand that Alexa's data is as believeable as the tooth fairy!!!!

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/thoughts-on-alexa-data/