Hi Andrew!

Last week I launched my first website – online shop selling video games (PS3, Xbox 360 etc.). The problem is that I can’t see any traffic coming in from Google or other search engines. Why’s that? And do I have to submit my website to search engines?

Thanks,
Mark

Hey Mark! Thanks for your question.

First things first – if your website is brand new (only few days old), no panic here! Usually it takes weeks and sometimes even months for search engine spiders to come and index your site. Here’s what you should do – check whatever Google has indexed any pages on your site. How? Simply go to Google.com and enter: site:www.yourdomain.com

If no results come up it means Google hasn’t indexed any pages yet. There could be several reasons behind it but most common and simple one – Google hasn’t noticed your site yet! Here’s the easiest way to tell Google about your newborn baby:

Publish an article with back links to your site on a reputable website, like eBay (Blog post, review or guide), eZineArticles.com (article), PRWeb.com (press release), popular blog (blog comment) or forum (forum post with a link or signature pointing back to your site). In a word – publish some links on a well know places so that Google can easily find and index your site.

Once this is done, wait for a week or so – now, at least some of the pages of your website should be indexed in Google when you do the site search (site:http://www.yourdomain.com). Once it happens I recommend you to open Google’s webmaster tools account and submit details & sitemap for your website. This way you tell Google exactly what you want them to do (of course, a different question is whatever Big G will listen to you but still – it helps!).

For e-commerce stores, Google Base is a great way to get indexed fast and quickly! It’s free and most shopping carts have integrated Google Base modules or plugins for product export. So check out how it works here!

Speaking about other search engines – you really don’t have to worry about them. Once Google indexes your website, others will follow sooner or later. There are in fact only 3 search engines out there worth paying attention to – Google, Yahoo & MSN. MSN is slowly dying while Yahoo can bring in a decent level of traffic, especially in low competition niches. To get indexed on Yahoo as fast as possible, post some helpful answers on Yahoo Answers with a link back to your site.

All in all, time when you had to submit your website to dozens of search engines and hundreds of website directories is over! Now, all you need is one back link on a reputable website and spiders will do the rest! Just remember, to optimize your e-commerce website for SEO purposes before launching it – so that each page has different description, Title and Meta Tags. I’ll cover each of the elements in future blog posts.