I have written a great product and put it up on a website, but the site has never been hit by any online searchers. Do I have to pay to get my site displayed by search engines?

No, you do not have to pay. The big three search engines, Google, at http://www.google.com/addurl ; Yahoo, at http://www.search.yahoo.com (click "submit your site"); and MSN, at search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx each have Web pages where you can submit your site for free.

However, there's a difference between simply getting your site visited by the search engines (and thereby listed in their results), and getting good placement in those results. It won't do you much good to be listed if your product is on page 153,240.

You may have to pay someone to help you get good 'search engine optimization'. But there are some very basic things you, or your webmaster, can do for starters.

Make sure your site has relevant text on all its pages, including your home page. Search engines love text. Not images, nor Flash [animation]. Make sure your titles are relevant, since search engines display results by the Web page's title.

Results excerpt at least 25 words from the body of the Web page with the search terms displayed in bold. Make sure that your text includes words that people might use in a search.

Include plenty of links on your website. Sites linked to by other sites get higher placement in search results.

Get others to link to you. What goes around comes around, so link to others from your site, too.

Susan A. Kitchens

Author and web designer

Albert J. Zdenek Jr.

CPA and chief executive of Zdenek Financial Planning