How much should I invest in search engines?

free submissions enough?

[anttiv]

I've had other websites before but I've opened a new site and this is the first time I'm heavily dependant on search engine ranking.

At first I though I'd buy some software like Addweb and submit my new site automatically to 1000s of search engines. And then I'd make 100s of doorway pages and exchange links with 1000s of websites. But now I've been reading about the dos and don'ts in SEO and I know I should definetly NOT do it like that. (Yes, I'm a newbie in this)

Will I be fine if I just submit my site manually to the largest SEs? I need traffic mainly from Europe (UK, Germany, France...)

I'm willing to spend around 200 euros for marketing the site at this stage. Are there any good search engines, directories or software I should consider? I've been using Google AdWords until now but CPC of 5 cents is a bit too high for now.

As for the site, it should index well on search engines (meta tags, text link, different language versions etc.)

[jbinbpt]

Hello anttiv,
Welcome to Webmaster World.

One of the gems that you find here is this thread 12 Months [webmasterworld.com] on how to structure your web promotion.

The major task for you is to build links to your site. The more quality links, the better.

You are also correct, that doing the old spammy stuff, is not the way to rank well these days. There are a lot of opinions here as to what to do, but as a general rule code for the users and not the SE's.

Go for links and content and you'll be fine.

jb

<added>No harm in free submissions, after all they are free except for time. No proof that paying for it really helps </added>

[anttiv]

Um, I just checked one of my keyword phrases with Google Portugal and found out that the 10 first pages are nothing but doorway pages for the same site.

But you're right about coding for users, not SE's. It's just a little unfair until that site get's banned.

[jbinbpt]

Drop a note to Google about that specific search. I believe that they listen. If nothing else, it will make you feel better.

jb

[simonuk]

I openly admit that I use Addweb Link Trader system. For me it saves a HUGE amount of time because I currently do SEO's for 24 web sites. Having to trawl through the web looking for links for 24 (and rising) web sites would be a time wasting nightmare for me.

Most link exchange proggys are a waste of time and google will be stopping them but I _believe_ addwebs way of doing it to be much harder to handle because it's upto the site owner who and how many sites they link too.

Creating multiple pages might cause you to get banned in the long run. Can you really take chance?

I have addweb but never use the SE submission service because it's quicker to add your site to the few that you _really_ need instead of 100,000's you'll never need. Plus SE's are quite sharp on spotting proggy's like this trying to submit and it could hamper your chances instead of boosting them.

Hope that helps :)

Simon.

[SirFroggZ]

I would strongly advise in advertising with Google Adwords. Up untill this past Florida udated i did not use Adwords. Well my rakings have gone back up but because of adwords my sales never went down. Infact they went up. I will continue using adwords. Great investment. I would only reccomend them for very targeted key words such as product names. Not broad words like computer.

[anttiv]

I added the url to my largest site which gets indexed by Google every day. Now my new site is listed in both Google and Inktomi. Great. That was fast and free. Now I need to get up from page 10...

I'm using Adwords at the same time. I get targeted visitors for 5 cents a click but the problem is I'm not getting enough money from them to pay for the costs (I only sell low price ringtones).

Are there any cheaper PPC programs in Europe?