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I'm going to assume that you have already got your website listed with the top 10 Search Engines. I'm also going to assume that you have already worked very hard to get your website well ranked within these Search Engines.

If you have not yet done this, then the strategy we're about to discuss is probably best left on the back burner! The most important Search Engines are the top ten (ie. AOL Netfind, AltaVista, Excite, Lycos, etc.) - these are the Search Engines that will bring the most traffic to your site, so they should be your main focus!

However, once you've done this, it's time to consider setting aside a few hours to register your site with the appropriate Specialty Search Engines and Directories.

What are they?

Specialty Search Engines and Directories are similar to the top 10 Search Engines. The difference is that instead of focusing on the entire Internet, they narrow their focus to a specific subject or topic range. They will not bring in as much traffic as the big 10 - however, because they "specialise" in certain topics, they will attract a target group of web-surfers who are especially interested in that particular subject!

The Specialty Search Engines may scour the entire web looking for their subject areas, or they may be site specific. The only way you'll know this is by checking them out individually!

There are also thousands of specialty directories to be found. Yahoo is an example of a "directory" - though most people think of it as a Search Engine! The staff of Yahoo review and categorise hundreds of thousands of sites. As a result, Yahoo is ranked as the number one directory on the Internet. However, Yahoo's staff deals with thousands of topic areas, so you may sometimes have someone indexing a subject area who is not an expert in that field! As a result, there are thousands of specialised directories that may do a better job of dealing with certain topics simply because they are created by subject area experts and enthusiasts.

The specialty Search Engines and directories can provide you with another opportunity to bring qualified traffic into your website.

For example, let's say that you have a website called dogsite.com ... a site specialising in the topic of dogs (Big surprise!). You have developed your website to be the definitive source for dog information... and now you're even selling dog vitamins and gourmet dog food! Once you've perfected your website and registered it with the top 10 Search Engines (and optimised your position within them), it is worth spending a bit of time registering with the specialty Search Engines and directories who index dog, animal, or pet related information.

However, the biggest challenge you will face is actually finding the specialty Search Engines that you want to register with!

Here are some good places to begin your search:

FinderSeeker bills itself as the Search Engine for Search Engines. You can search by keyword and narrow your search down by Category and/or Country.

To follow through on my dogsite.com example, I searched for "pets" and did not limit my search by category or by country. This search produced over a dozen different Search Engines including "Animal Search" (A family-safe search engine for animal related web sites), "Bulldog.org" (A search engine for information about dogs), "Pet Path Search" (A searchable encyclopedia of information about cats and dogs), and "Simply Pets" (A guide to online pet sites). Basically, I found some great leads!

The BigHub.com also bills itself as the Search Engine for Search Engines. The BigHub.com allows users to search multiple engines, Web directories, and news databases simultaneously. It then produces one simple summary of the results. If you scroll half-way down the main page, you'll find the search engine panel.

Once again, I searched "pets" ... but only received one hit! Disappointing! So I tried "marketing" ... and this time I got 19 results, most of them searchable archives.

Beaucoup.com opens with a page of useful search categories. I immediately located "pets/animals" and was presented with a comprehensive list of sites and directories... and several animal related Search Engines. Beaucoup also includes a Meta Search Engine. For those of you who have never heard of this before, a Meta Search Engine polls other Search Engines for your keywords or phrases, producing a list of results for each Search Engine.

Yipe! Is your head spinning yet? Let's try and unravel this mess....

There are:

• Search Engines like the top 10 ( GoTo.com ) which theoretically index the entire Internet.
• Specialty Search Engines like Animal Search, that specialise in searches for specific topics or subjects.
• Meta Search Engines such as Ask Jeeves that poll a number of the "regular" Search Engines (ie. GoTo.com). Meta Search engines allow you to simultaneously view the results from a number of different "regular" Search Engines.
• and Search Engines such as FinderSeeker that specialise in searching for other Search Engines.

Whew!! We did it!

Try a few of these different search engines, and I think you'll immediately see the differences between them! The results can vary drastically depending on the engine that you are using.

We're not finished yet though! There's more....

Search IQ lists thousands of Search Engines and Directories. Now these people COULD make their site easier to use, but I did manage to find loads of Search Engines and directories about dogs! And a little bonus was the "tutorials" section which had a number of good articles about searching the Internet.

SearchEngineWatch has a limited number of specialty Search engines in their list - it is not as comprehensive as some of the others!

Remember: there is no one thing that is going to be responsible for the success of your website. Marketing and promoting your site is an on-going process! However, taking such steps as registering your site with the specialty Search Engines and directories will help you to build a steady flow of traffic!

Just as a side note, if you haven't had a chance to check out our Internet Marketing Course It will give you some great tips and tricks on how to best promote your website to the search engines. Check it out, you won't be dissapointed!

And once you've got the visitors there? ... Sell them something!