Have you had trouble with your website showing up in search engines? Don't feel bad, most people do. Search engine optimization and page rank are a hotly debated topic. There are many opinions and theories on how to go about it. Are there steps that you can take to make sure you get indexed quicker than most?

It is becoming clear that the search engines like certain things to help them index your page. It is very clear that good content helps. Fresh original content will always give you an edge up over your competition. This is why some blogs do very well. Their content is updated on a regular basis.

The next thing that that probably helps more than anything else is links pointing to your site. Not just any link but good links from relevant high page ranked sites. A link to your site coming from a website that has good page rank and is indexed already will help your site get indexed all that much quicker. Link farms, or links from "bad neighborhoods" can actually keep your site from getting indexed.

Don't be mislead by offers that will submit your website to 1000 search engines. Submitting to search engines isn't really needed anymore. Most search engines prefer to find your site on their own. Meaning as they crawl the web, they follow links to find new websites. So if you have links on other websites pointing to your site, the robots will find it. It may take days, weeks or even months but they will find it.

You can help Google find your site by generating a xml site map. Once this is done and you submit it to Google, the will crawl your site on a regular basis. If you make substantial changes you can go back and update your site map so they won't wait till the next schedule crawl.

Adding your links to directories and forums will also help get your site indexed quicker. Submitting articles will also help you build back links to your website. As others republish your articles, your links continue to spread, raising your page rank and your search engine standing. Be sure your links are working correctly. Many authors forget that step.

All this has little meaning if you have not built your web site yet or it is still under construction. You can learn how to put the whole process on speed dial by reading The 48 Hour Plan.