"What can I do to maximise the number of visitors to my website?"
It's a big question but also a very important one. Here's some concise and useful answers.

•  Make sure your website address is mentioned on all your business stationery.
•  Arrange for your website address to be mentioned in your Yellow Pages advertisements.
•  Ensure your website address is included in ALL your advertising (especially printed adverts).
•  Make sure you've asked Nambucca Graphics to optimise your pages for certain key words.
•  Check that Nambucca Graphics has submitted your website to major "free" Search Engines.
•  Ask to be listed on specialised portal or gateway websites for your town or your industry.

"I believe some Search Engines charge a fee for listing.
What's your view on this and is it really worthwhile?"
Yes, there's an unfortunate trend towards having to pay search engine listing fees. For example, Yahoo, MSN, and Lycos are amongst the "biggies" now wanting an up-front fee. Fortunately there are still a number of important Search Engines which do not yet charge. To answer the question precisely, we DO think it is worthwhile for SOME clients to pay such fees if the Search Engine concerned is important enough....but ONLY if you're a medium or large sized business.

We would place the Yahoo Search Engine at the top of your list if you're going to undertake this extra investment. Not because it is the best search engine.... but because it is very widely used by people new to the internet.

The fees of some major Search Engines are in the range of $US200 to $US400. We don't recommend that small businesses consider this significant extra investment because the cost for such businesses outweighs the probable benefits. Small businesses should probably confine themselves to the free Search Engines.

"Some outfits offer to submit a website to 1000 search engines
for $30 or less. Is this a good method for getting my site listed?"
No, forget it! There are less than 12 search engines capable of doing you much good and many of these don't accept free entries. Many others won't accept automatically generated computer submissions such as those employed by the outfits you mention. These types of offers are mostly going to submit your site to multiple "directory services" which are primarily designed to collect e-mail addresses. Many of those "1,000" directory services will subsequently sell your e-mail address to direct marketers. Before long you'll be swamped with unsolicited and unwelcome e-mailed "offers".

There's no simple way to get good search engine rankings. Your pages have to be carefully crafted to optimise your chances and then they need to be hand submitted by someone who knows the score. Nambucca Graphics takes care of this very important matter for most of our  clients as an additional service subject to a small fee.

"I want to appear on page 1. when someone searches for "left handed widgets"
Well everyone in the widget business wants to achieve the same result. This means you are in competition with the whole world wide widget industry. That's why you need an expert to create your web pages and then submit them to search engines on your behalf.

We at Nambucca Graphics have literally put thousands of man hours into studying this subject and engaging in experimentation. It's impossible to discuss it in a meaningful way in this forum. You have to put the matter in our hands and trust us to do a good job. We'll do our absolute best  but remember, no search engine result can ever be guaranteed.

"I've got some terrific search engine rankings with Google
but I'm way down the list for the same search via Alta Vista"
The first thing you need to know is that every search engine has its own particular way of indexing your website and giving you a ranking for various key words or phrases. The exact methods are ultra secret and even change on a regular basis.

Over time it is possible to gradually figure out quite a lot about how each search engine works. Unfortunately it is still not possible to maximise any one page so that it does really well for all your important key words and for every different search engine. Each search engine is different and each key word is a new challenge.

For most websites we can use our specialised knowledge and experience to get you very close to the top with one or more important search engines. We generally succeed in getting you reasonably well ranked with some other important search engines as well but perhaps poorly ranked with the rest. These are the facts of life and it's a much better result than most websites achieve. Don't let anyone tell you that a better result is easily (or cheaply) achieved.

It's possible to go several steps beyond this type of result. It involves us in creating a number of so-called "doorway pages" each of which is optimised to rank well with a particular search engine and for one keyword or phrase. This naturally involves an additional investment on your part. We would NOT recommend that you consider any such extra investment until fully assessing what we have been already able to achieve on your behalf. Very few clients consider it necessary to go the extra mile (with its attendant additional expense).

"I didn't pay anything but I notice my website is listed by Yahoo"
There are two possible reasons. People who got listed by Yahoo in the good old free days haven't been dropped....as yet. The other thing to mention is that there is a lot of incest between search engines and they sometimes supplement their search results with results they legally obtain from other sources. When we submit your site to the various search engines we keep this type of activity in mind and "cunningly" submit in ways that will sometimes get you this free bonus.

"How long does it take for Search Engines to list my new website?"
It varies according to the individual Search Engine and other variables. A few useful but less prominent Search Engines will have you indexed within a week of us submitting your website to them. A number of others seem to take around 4-8 weeks. Some Engines take up to six months. With some Search Engines you can pay an "Express Submission" fee to jump to the top of the Review queue. They usually guarantee to review your website within 2 to 7 days.

"Should I submit my website to Search Engines or leave it entirely to you?"
Look, there are so many pitfalls that it is much safer to leave it to us. What is called "over-submission" for example can even send you lower down the ranking lists or have you banned. And if you accidentally submit to a site masquerading as an important Search Engine you could be deluged with unwanted spam mail.