Web Directories - General Introduction

Best Tips For Web Directory Submission Link Building Campaigns

Is Submitting your Website to Directories still worthwhile?

Secrets for a Successful Directory Submission

Web Directories - General Introduction

Best Tips For Web Directory Submission Link Building Campaigns

The buzzword of the hour is ‘SEO’. It has transformed the architecture of sites, brought about many new jobs, and is now considered vitally important for those that want to take their online operations to the next level. In its simplest form, search engine optimization (or "SEO") is about doing everything you can to boost your natural ranking in the major search engines. The algorithm that ranks your site (despite variations across engines) is a compilation of many different variables. There is no one magic secret or special key you can turn. The goal is really to check off as many variables as possible from that algorithm. The kicker is that, for the most part, we don’t actually know what is contained in these algorithms that are so important to us. We can, however, make educated guesses. And there are several aspects of SEO that most, if not all, industry professionals agree on. One of those factors is the importance of link-building.

The Internet was built upon links. Sites link to one another to guide users through relevant information. Since these links basically mean, "there’s relevant information on this site," each link pointing towards your site counts as a "vote" towards it. These votes help improve your natural ranking, especially when coupled with a well-built SEO friendly site. The big question is, of course, how do I go about getting other sites to link mine? Fortunately, the answer is an easy one, because there are many well run search engine friendly directories that would be more than happy to link to your site as part of their directory.

But the most popular directories receive thousands of applications to review. As such, they develop rules and guidelines for your submission. These rules are put in place to ensure that the submission and approval process can flow as smoothly as possible, as well as to help the directory select only the sites that are, in fact, relevant. And so the question returns: how do I ensure that my site gets accepted into the high-quality, top web directories?

It is very easy to adhere to the rules of a web directory with very little effort. In addition, because the editors of any directory are really looking for the same things, the rules from web directory to web directory tend to be very similar.

Count Those Characters:
One of the big rules imposed by directories has to do with the length of your title, description and keywords. If there were no limit, some people would write an essay for descriptions and cram in every possible keyword. Let me assure you that no directory editor wants to review a site application that could be broken up into chapters! Directories impose restrictions that essentially force you to be straight to the point. You might not be able to say everything about your site, so pick the most important points and go with that. Before you start submitting anywhere, sit back and write a few well-formulated descriptions that span 100, 150, 200, and 250 characters. One of those four levels will generally work in any web directory you come across. Once that’s done, most of the hard work is out of the way. Now all you have to do is look for the character requirements, copy and paste your blurb of that length, and you’re all set. The same thing holds true for keywords, so prepare a few different options so that, come submission time, it’s just a matter of picking the right one.

Would You Approve A Spam Filled Site Application?
Do not spam your directory listings. That can’t be more clearly stated, yet for some reason, people still do it. You are never going to get listed in any human reviewed directory when you try this tactic. An example of this would be that if you sell widgets, when you submit your information you repeat the word ‘widgets’ in your title, description, and keywords as many times as possible. Typically comprehension takes a back seat as the focus becomes cramming the word in as many times as possible. Directory editors hate this and it’s a very easy rejection. If you think that even attempting to spam like this is helpful, you might want to think again. If you spend time submitting to web directories with poorly articulated, spam-filled information, you are going to get rejected. You’ve then wasted a lot of your time and gotten absolutely nothing in return.

Choose The Right Category:
Web directories are sorted by topic and editors typically take great pride in ensuring that everything stays well organized. A tiny little bit of effort on your part to choose the right category can vastly improve your chances of being listed without any delay. The reason is simply that if you are an editor and you want to approve a site, you probably only have to click one button. But, if that site chose the wrong category, then you need to edit the application to modify the category (and now the editor has to find the correct category in the hierarchy!), which takes more time. If you are the editor sitting there with thousands of applications to process, it’s much easier to click the ‘reject’ button than it is to start fumbling through categories. So, put yourself in their shoes and do them a favor, because ultimately it’s you and your site that stand to benefit when you are approved.

A successful web directory submission campaign is when you maximize your time so that you get listed in the most directories possible. By following the above tips, you can help ensure you get approved, which goes a long way towards achieving your goal. With everything pre-written and good intentions to play by the rules, you’ll be flying through your submission campaign in no time.

Robert Burko is president and founder of Eliteweb.cc, a first-class internet portal and a comprehensive search-engine-friendly web directory.

Is Submitting your Website to Directories still worthwhile?

For a long time, one of the first suggestions of many SEO (Search Engine optimization) specialists for improving your rankings on the major search sites was to submit your website to web directories, preferably human edited ones. I assume everyone or mostly everyone reading this article knows the difference between a directory and a search engine. Yahoo.com is directory (everyone has seen that site) because it contains categories of sites organized by subject as opposed to producing pure search results based on the users keyword selection.

MSN is an example of a search engine because it produces results based on what words and phrases you imput in the search bar.

Another difference is that website inclusion in directories is generally done manually, meaning that a human being actually reviews the site to determine if it is worthy enough to be listed. These individuals are known as editors.

So the question is, are directories still an effective tool from an SEO standpoint?

To cut right to the chase, I will say yes, if used properly.

First of all, I would suggest quality over quantity. It is probably much better to have a few listings in the top human edited directories (which are considered 'authority sites' by some search engines) such as DMOZ (also known as Open Directory Project although in my opinion it should be renamed the closed directory project because it almost takes an act of God to be listed anymore), Goguides.org, Joe Ant and of course the Yahoo Directory than a bunch of listings on the more marginal directories. There are several others as well which are important.

Some of these are hard to get into, while some others are relatively easy.

The effectiveness of your directory listings is heavily dependent on how effectively you use the 'anchor text'. The anchor text is simply the title of the link back to your site.

This is very important because it tells the search engines how other sites see you and describe you, which in turn guides them in indexing you. So if you have an incoming link from a top authority site such as DMOZ that happens to have your main keywords in the title or the anchor text, you are substantially increasing your chances for being ranked high for those particular keywords.

Why do the engines consider sites like these edited web directories to be authority sites?

Well partially because they know if a site is listed in a site such as DMOZ then it will have passed the inspection of a human editor.

For the search engine spider, which has no eyeballs of its own, this is an important indication of quality and relevance.

And what keeps the search engines in business is giving it's viewers quality, relevant results.

The other factor that will be a key determinant in whether or not your directory submissions are successful or not is how well you choose the category.

If the category is related to your site then it will be considered a relevant link but if it is not than it may be little better than having your link in a "link farm" as it will appear random to the search engine spiders. So if you want to maximize the effectiveness of your directory submissions choose your anchor text wisely and only submit to the category that matches the content of your website and you should be fine.

Secrets for a Successful Directory Submission

Every webmaster wants links (possibly a lot of them!). That's not surprisingly because links from other sites are not only a source of traffic, but also a very important factor that helps a site to rank well in search engines results.

Apparently submitting your site to web directories is one of the quickest ways to get links, but getting listed is sometimes much more difficult than it may seem.

The problem is that web directories are swamped by a large number of low quality submissions: poorly designed web sites, web sites without any original content or created only to display advertisements and so on.

For this reason directory editors review hundreds of sites per day and accept only those complying to a very strict set of guidelines. There are days, and I talk by personal experience, when more than 90% of submissions are rejected, in many case without even the need to visit the site simply because of a poorly written submission.

If you want to increase your chances to see your site listed, it's essential to understand what informations you are required to provide about your site and how to properly submit them.

At least title, description and url are required by all directories.

Web site title

Directories have more or less restrictive rules about what you can or cannot have as your site title. Some allow only your official domain name or company name, other are more liberal.

In any case a good title should never exceed 4-5 words. Using a long list of keywords as title (keyword stuffing), excessive repetitions and inappropriate punctuation must be absolutely avoided.

Web site description

Many sites are rejected due to an inappropriate description. A description is not an advertisement and should never contain superlatives or excessive marketing hype.

Directory listings are usually searchable by words contained both in title and description so the keywords commonly used to find your site should be included in your site description. However always write 2-3 complete sentences that sound natural do not make your description a long list of keywords.

Web site URL

You would say that people should at least be able to correctly submit their own web site url. If you work as directory editor for a while you will change your mind! It happens quite frequently that a site is rejected simply because of a mistyped url.

Never type your site url directly into the submission form. Test it in your browser, save it in a text file and copy and paste from there.

Each directory can have some other specific rules, so be sure to carefully read the submission guidelines and comply to any special requirement.

It's said that you never get a second chance to make a good first impression: directory editors read the informations you submit before visiting your web site. Learn to properly write your submissions and you will greatly increase the chances to have your website accepted.

About the Author

Mike Paolieri is an editor of Arakne Links Directory a human edited general directory accepting free submissions. No reciprocal link is required to get listed. http://www.arakne-links.com/