Getting Your Site Indexed Before You Launch

I've noticed that most people tend to wait until their site is launched to begin working on getting indexed in the search engines. With iPrioritize I made it a point to be indexed BEFORE I launched and it worked out great so I figured I'd share it with you guys.

The key to getting your site indexed in the big three (Google, Yahoo!, MSN) is getting links pointing to it from sites that are already indexed. When the search bots crawl those sites they will inevitably find the link to your site and your site will be added to their index. Follow these five steps a month before you launch and you'll be a step ahead of the game.

1. Register your domain name. You'd be surprised how many people wait until the last minute to do this. The sooner you register your domain, the sooner you can get some quality links pointing to it and get it indexed.


2. Put up a home page. Make a "coming soon" page with your logo, information about your site, and expected launch date. You can also add a form for people to sign up for email updates about your site. This starts building your email marketing list before you even launch. A great example of this is Walamu, a new student text book exchange business by fellow YE Rohail Rizvi.


3. Start a blog and sign up for Feedburner. Put up a blog at www.yoursite.com/blog. It doesn't matter if you use WordPress, Blogger, or whatever blog platform you prefer, just make sure you host it on your site. Make a few posts about your site, what people can expect when it launches, and why your site will be unique. After your first post, sign up for a Feedburner account. Under 'Publicize' in your account make sure to sign up for 'Ping Shot'. This will notify blogging directories of your posts which hopefully will result in a few links to your site.


4. Write a few articles and submit to directories. Regardless of what your site is about, there is certainly a topic relating to your site that you could write an article about. For example, if your site is going to sell fitness equipment, you could write an article about how to build a home-gym. Or if you are going to rate and review new cars, you could write an article about how to shop for a new car. After you've written and proofread your articles, submit them to article directories like Ezine Articles and iSnare. Be sure to include a description of your new site and a link back to it in the resource box. Again, this should result in a few links to your site.


5. Get a link from an indexed site. Steps 3 and 4 should result in some links from indexed sites which should then ensure your site to be indexed. But it can't hurt to get a few more on your own to be certain. When I launched iPrioritize, I linked to it from this blog a few weeks in advance, which I knew would ensure that it got indexed. If you don't have that option, you can ask someone with a blog or site related to yours to mention it. If you are a YE, I would be happy to mention your new business in this blog.

Getting yourself indexed before you launch gives you a head start on your SEO and will allow your site to have a more immediate impact. Why wait until you launch? Get started a month early and you'll reap the benefits when launch day rolls around.