You don’t need to submit your site to the search engines. They will find it on their own. Once your site is online, Google will probably find it within a matter of days. The “other” SE’s will take a bit longer.

Here’s a quote from Google’s Webmaster Central:

Inclusion in Google’s search results is free and easy; you don’t even need to submit your site to Google. Google is a fully automated search engine that uses software known as ’spiders’ to crawl the web on a regular basis and find sites to add to our index.

If you pick up some inbound links to your site, they search engines will find it even faster. You’ll also be well on your way to good rankings, because links weigh heavily in search engine algorithms. Publishing a press release online is a good way to gain links to your website. It will get the ball rolling, at least.

You can also attract links from other websites by publishing something useful, interesting or unique. In fact, this should be part of your publishing creed. Whenever I put a new article or tutorial online, I try hard to make it useful to my key audience. The better the content, the more links you’ll get over time. This is what separates top-ranking websites from those found on page two, three, four, etc.

If you still want to submit your website URL to search engines, then knock yourself out. It’s just not necessary.

No, I can’t. As much as I’d like to, there are just too many variables to name a certain cost. But I can give you some food for thought.

When I was in the SEO business, I charged my clients $550 per month for a certain number of tasks. Unlike most SEO firms, I actually quantified the work I did every month. It might include two pages of website content, two hours of link-building work (also quantifiable), and one hour of admin-type services.

Of course, some SEO firms charge more money and do less work. That’s the nature of this industry. There are plenty of scum bags who start SEO companies with dreams of getting rich. Some of them know how to talk a good game, but that’s about it. Unfortunately, I’d say these folks are the rule — not the exception. If you find a search engine optimization consultant that does solid work each month (and quantifies it for you), then you’ve found the exception to the rule. Stick with that person!

How much does SEO cost, you ask? Let me pose another question. How much would it be worth if you learned to do basic SEO tasks for yourself? Search-marketing firms want you to think that SEO is difficult and “techie.” It’s in their interest for you to think that way. But it’s simply not true. Search engine optimization can be boiled down to two things — content development and link building. In fact, if you do an excellent job creating content (or providing something useful), you don’t have to worry about link building. It will take care of itself.

Here’s another important question to ask: What is the SEO firm doing for the money they charge you each month? If they’re vague about their services, it’s probably because they’re not doing very much. I was proud of the work I performed each month, so I used to describe it clearly on my website. There was no mystery to what I did each month — it was itemized in plain language.

In contrast, I once worked for a marketing company that laughed about the “free money” their customers sent them each month. These were customers who paid for monthly SEO services when absolutely nothing was being done. It was despicable. And needless to say, I didn’t work there for very long. This kind of deplorable work ethic is common in the SEO industry, by the way. So before you pay a dime for search engine optimization, you need to find out exactly what the company is going to do for you. How else can you comparison shop?

So while I can’t tell you how much SEO costs on average, I can tell you that you’re better off handling it yourself. It all starts with your online business model and your website content. If you create a boring website in a saturated market, all of the SEO services in the world won’t help you. Not in the grand scheme of things. But if you create a highly useful website and create a niche for yourself, your site will rise steadily through the search engine ranks.

They will eventually find it on their own, as they continuously search the web for new sites. But there are some things you can do to expedite the process. It all has to do with inbound links. These are links from other web sites to yours. If you can get a few links to your new website (ideally from well-established sites), the search engines will find you within a couple of days.

This leads to the next question webmasters ask: “How do I get other sites to link to mine?”

The long-term approach is to publish quality content that other people will find useful, interesting, controversial, etc. This will encourage other webmasters to link to your site on their own. In the short term, you can get links by submitting your website to a directory, or by publishing some articles online. If you have some news to share, you could also publish a press release through a service like PRWeb.com. These are all ways to get links from existing, well-established sites.

As a new webmaster, you’ll eventually get some spam emails from “companies” offering to add your website to search engines like Google. You can delete these emails. There’s no need to pay anyone for “search engine submission.” It’s a complete waste of money.

I would also warn you against using a “link-building company. These people charge you to build links to your site, in order to boost your rankings in Google, Yahoo, etc. While it’s true that link help with rankings, many of these companies go about it all wrong. Thus, they can do a lot more harm than good.

This article answers the question: How do I add my new website to search engines like Google? More Internet marketing questions and answers are coming soon.