What is the best way to advertise?

Since 85% of Internet users rely on search engines to find goods and services, it is essential that every business promote their business via a published domain named website on major search engines such as Google.com, Yahoo.com & MSN.com. These major search engines are the Yellow Pages for all business which can be reached by anyone having an Internet connection.

Begin by publishing your website's domain name for FREE at Google's search directory, visit "http://google.com/addurl/?continue=/add... and fill-in the form. In another way, Google, Yahoo or MSN provide a Yellow Pages kind of advertisement for every website according to a set of ranking protocols. And there's where web designers and search engine optimizers play an critical role in marketing websites which in turn, display goods and services to be discovered [via search directories] by the rest of the world. The greater the appearance or presence that one's website can generate on search directories, the greater number of customers will accordingly visitor one's website.

As for the cost to market one's website via the Internet and more particularly -- search directories, will depend initially with the proper design of webpages and the proper placement of metatags which are: <Title>, <Description> and <Keywords>.

A searchable <Title> would be "[name of the goods/services - a generic domain name is okay unless you own a well-know brand], [city], [state - postal abbreviation]" -- up to 65 characters and spaces. The <Description> would be up to 20 words comprising a complete readable sentence which promotes interest in your business, i.e., "We sell quality _____ at a reasonable price, etc." And <keywords> would consist of 12-15 compound plural words separated by commas, i.e., "cars, planes, transportation, etc."

In conclusion, webpages can either be rather straightforward using only HTML text or be crafted totally as a graphic Flash configuration. Either way, care should be taken to complete the Properties entries for Title, Description and Keywords so that there is something that search robots can index. The more one is educated in crafting effective webpages along with metatag placement, the less will be spent to hire third-party consultants to assist you in this matter.

To demonstrate how search engines/directories work, go to Yahoo.com and type in the following search query: "pizza downtown los angeles." [Note: do not include the quotes (").] Again, this is a very generic query which means you want to order a "pizza" from "downtown" and in what city -- "Los Angeles." Sounds fairly simple and then hit Enter. In a moment or two, there will appear some 1.3 million search results and among the top Five rankings will be a business called "Pizza Next Door, etc." The significance of this demonstration is to illustrate that most Interest shoppers will discover "Pizza Next Door," forthright because of its high web presence and ranking within the Top Five. So these shoppers are more or less likely to patronize this pizza establishment and hopefully in the long term; validate the owner and his family as having a profitable Internet enterprise.

To further illustrate how one can achieve a TOP 10 page ranking on Google.com, type in the following search query: "ecommerce tutorials seo." [Note: do not include the quotes (").] Again, this is a very generic query. Then hit Enter. In a moment or two, there will appear some 1.44 million search results and among the TOP 10 rankings will be a website called "Welcome to Downtown Los Angeles."

Good luck!