So, why would you want to pay, if you can to all this yourself? Some people may not have the time, first of all. And there are certain search engines, like Yahoo, that you cannot submit a business site to unless you pay. And since Yahoo is one of the major engines, you may want to pay their price if you think if may bring you some business. Although, there is another way to get listed, even with your business site on Yahoo, without paying, but it's a little more difficult. It's through being sponsored. That's having your site listed on another site that has paid a listing on Yahoo. Not always easy to figure out, but a with a little research, or sometimes just a little luck, it can be done.

Another reason you may choose to pay a service to submit your site to the search engines, is if you don't know or understand a whole lot about "meta tags". If you are using a free host for example, you may not have a say in how these are set up, as they may do it for you. Unless you are able to see your html and meta tags for yourself, you may not even know whether your site will ever have a chance to get a better listing on a search engine. I'm not going to go into it here, but you may want to check out (try doing another search) about the importance of meta tags for better placement, or just pay to have someone fix them up for you. Meta tags are basically key words that spiders (or search engines use the term spiders when they pull information out of the meta tags, like key words to list your site under), that they use to determine where your site is placed in their directory (from top site to lowest site on their list). Sites at the top, of course are viewed most often, as many people don't bother to go to far down a list, but will click on the first several pages, or listings, to find what they want. So, if you don't want to, and don't want to learn how to make good meta tags, and you want to get a better listing rank, then you can pay someone else to fix them up for you. It's really not that hard, but does take a little research.

If you have a business site, search engines can be a worthwhile, if not necessary, means of getting your site advertised and promoted. If you just have a personal site and aren't so worried about how many people see your site, it may not be worth it to pay someone else to do all this for you. Most of it you can do on your own, but it does take some work. Or if you have a small business, you may also choose to do it yourself, as paying someone else to do it may not bring the financial rewards you would like, unless you have a product you know will sell enough of to make it worth while to have someone else do it for you. At any rate, submitting to search engines is a good idea, if you want to get your site seen.