The search engine giants are locked in an all out power struggle to get your attention and patronage.

Over the past 6 months there have been many changes. The big guys are getting even bigger, but there are a number of new players vying for your patronage too.

The top three Search Engines are Yahoo, MSN and Google. It would seem that Yahoo serves the most searches followed by MSN and then Google.

Only a year ago Google supplied both Yahoo and MSN with search listings. Yahoo has progresses from a Directory to a fully fledged search engine as has MSN with the launch of their new Search Engine. However Google still supplies search results to many other search engines including AOL, Alexa and a host of small and medium sized search engines.

It is my belief that any small business owner should know the basics of search engine placement and it is surprisingly easy to list your Web site, but even easier to get it ignored or even black listed by search engines.

All the information you require to list your site is only a search away. But you have to use the right search query. Don't type in 'search engines' into any search engine, as you will end up with a heap of useless information. It will probably list the top search engines, but it will probably not tell you how to prepare your Web site or how to get the best coverage for a listing.

For information on how to prepare your site I would try a search for a phrase like "search engine optimism" with the quotes so that your search is for that exact phase. The trouble is with first time Web site owners they don't always know the terminology, even a search for 'seo' will bring up a list of useful resources.

Other search phases include, optimize website, website optimizing, website optimization, web site optimization and website promotion, these are all useful search phases.

My experience is that any search engine submission company that promotes its services through paid memberships or sites that offer to list your site on many of the 100,000 plus search engines has more chance of getting your site ignored or black listed. Some companies do provide a good service but they are few and far between.

I personally only add a site to one search engine at a time and only the one time although there are a small number of search engines that will only list your site for a set period of time.

There is no set right way to list your site in search engines. It is not even necessary to physically add your site to a single search engine. A good example is my Ezine Web site. To date I have not submitted my site to a single search engine. Internet-Income-Index.com

I have added links to a couple of my personal sites and added my ezine articles to an Article directory or two and for a number of searches my site now comes up in the top 10 listing. Go to Google.com and try a search for the three main companies I promote online and see for yourself, TrafficOasis, ItsYourNet and Madison Dynamics !

So as you can see it is not necessary to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars on promotion of your Web site. If I can get top 10 listings for my site within 6 months for Affiliated programs that have in the case of TrafficOasis over 125,000 members who I would assume are also promoting their TrafficOasis page. A top listing is possible.

Listing your site will be a different process to how others promote their sites. Even I promote one site different to another site. Check http://www.allsearchengines.com for lists Search Engines by product, service, category and country.

If you have a communications company, I would suggest you list your site in communications specific search engines and directories.

Using pay-per-click is one way to promote your Website But even then my ezine site has listings on the first page of Overture.com who are one of the major pay-per-click search engines owned by Yahoo. Pay per click can become an expensive choice if your site is not optimized for both search engines and people.

There are a number of theories that the Gurus claim are best. Yanik Silver suggest that with mini sites of a few pages focused on one product or service are the story.

I totally agree, but a problem does arise when you are promoting a number of companies that have numerous products. This requires creating a site that houses the various products on individual pages like my ezine site. It will take you more time keeping it updated but either a mini site or a larger site will work if the proper research, optimizing and planning is completed.

Learning as much as you can about search engines is of the utmost importance if you hope to achieve high page ranking and for your prospective site visitor to stay at your site to make a purchase ...

Like you choosing the right search phase to get useful information on site optimization, the same applies to your site too.

Your site content must have the relevant content to provide to search engines so that they can list your site within the appropriate search results, then to get the searcher to decide to visit and stay at your site.

Let me simplify that.

Your site content must be relevant both for your visitors and search engines. Failure in one area directly affects the other.

May all your promotions be Successful.