Increase
Traffic by Getting Listed on
Specialized Directories
'More than 80% of the traffic comes
from the top ten search engines'.
How many times have you heard this
affirmation? Probably a lot and in
many cases it's surely true; getting
listed on the best known search
engines is important even if it's
becoming an ever more difficult and
time consuming task particularly
because of the increasing number of
sites fighting for the top
positions.
Fortunately, top search engines and
the largest directories are not the
only sites that can generate a
constant flux of quality, highly
targeted visitors.
There are hundreds of minor or
specialized directories, portals,
sites that publish links or
categorized lists of resources: not
all these sites are good, many
receive very little traffic, but
searching carefully you can find a
lot of places where it's worth
having a link to your site.
However if you start to submit your
site without an overall strategy and
some planning you risk to waste time
and energy.
First of all quality
When you try to get your site listed
on a directory you should never
forget that the main purpose of
these sites is not to offer all
webmasters an easy and free
promotion tool but to provide their
users with high quality resources.
Usually your site it's not listed
before it has been reviewed by an
human editor: more good and well
known is the directory more it will
be hard to convince its editors that
your site is good enough to receive
a listing.
So the first thing you need is a
well designed web site containing
useful information or offering
useful services or products.
Quantity sometimes is not less
important than quality: your site
will not look very interesting if it
has only a couple of pages.
It's also important that your site
never appears incomplete: if, for
example, you plan to add a new
section develop the content and
publish the pages when they are
completed, do not place a link to an
empty page with an 'under
construction' icon. This will look
unprofessional and your chances to
be listed will decrease.
Beside that try to avoid broken
links, big and slow loading pages, a
lot of useless graphics, background
pictures or colors that make
difficult to read the text.
Write your listing details
Once your site is ready is a good
idea to spend some time to write the
text of your listing.
Open your favorite text editor and
write:
1) your web site URL.
2) your email address.
3) 3 or more titles with different
lengths (15, 25, 60 characters
should go well in most cases). Use
an eye catching phrase trying to be
original without excessive hype and
word capitalization.
4) 3 or more different descriptions
(60, 75, 90 or more characters). The
description is an invite to click
your link so point out every benefit
a visitor will receive from your
site. Even in this case you should
avoid excessive hype or too blatant
advertising: if your description
looks unprofessional it can be
edited or cause the rejection of
your submission.
5) a set of search keywords starting
from the most important: write the
same keywords on two different rows;
on the first they will be separated
by commas and on the other by
spaces.
6) your company name (if you have
any), full address and phone number:
some business related directories
require these information.
When you have done save the
document: you will use it to copy
and paste information on the site
submission forms you will visit.
Doing so you will save a lot of time
and avoid errors.
Where to start your submissions
Once you have submitted your site to
the biggest directories (Yahoo,
Looksmart, Snap, ODP, I assume you
don't need instructions on how to
find these sites!) you can
concentrate on specialized
directories related to your business
or web site topics. As a specialized
directory lists only sites
pertaining to determined categories
(free stuff sites, web resources,
graphics, business only, non
business only and so on), it
delivers to your site visitors with
an high interest in your contents.
Then you can submit your site to
minor general directories: generally
you will receive less traffic from
these sites than from specialized
directories, so to get some good
results you need to have patience
and get your listing on a lot of
them.
When you visit these sites don't go
directly to the site submission
page, do some searches and browse
the listings categories to determine
the most relevant for your site.
This is important because submitting
to the wrong category can cause the
rejection of your site.
Check how the sites are listed, if
they are ranked in alphabetical
order by title you can consider to
adjust your title so that it ranks
higher. However keep it relevant to
the contents of your site; if it
seems that you are cheating to get a
better position your submission
risks to be refused.
To fill in the site submission form
copy and paste the information from
the text file you have prepared:
choose the most appropriated title
and description that don't exceed
the maximum length set by the
directory. If a set of search
keywords is required paste those
that are separated by commas, unless
space separated keywords are
expressly requested.
Verifying the results
Keep track of your submissions using
a text file, a word processor
document or a database to annotate
the directory URL and the date of
each submission.
Some directories send confirmation
emails when your site has been
accepted; save these emails in a
dedicated folder on your email
client program and flag the
directory on your submissions list.
Periodically visit the sites that
haven't sent a confirmation and do a
search using your site URL or your
most important keywords to check if
your site is listed and eventually
resubmit it.
However avoid to resubmit too often;
there are not general rules but
submitting a site to the same
directory not more than once a month
it's usually safe: you should
resubmit less frequently to the top
directories because they need more
time to list your site.
We hope that these suggestions may
help you to get your site listed on
great number of directories: this
can significantly increase your
traffic even if it's required some
time to obtain good results. |
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