by: Jeff Schuman
Having a top placement on a search engine and enjoying the traffic that comes with a top ranking is dependent on many things. Certainly at the top of that list is having as many links and quality links pointing to your site. Your competition has hundreds and possibly even thousands of links pointing back to them. This is what it is going to take for you to compete with them as well.
Did you know that over 90% of search engine traffic comes from Google, Yahoo, and MSN. These three search engines provide results for many other search engines, and if you are listed on these three search engines, your site will be listed on many other search engines too.
AltaVista for example gets their search results from Yahoo. AOL and Netscape use Google and also get some results from Open Directories like DMOZ.
When you see an ad offering to submit your site to thousands of search engines save your money. It simply is not worth the time it takes to sign up for their service and you are better off to spend your money on another form of promoting.
What is worth the time and money is to submit your site to as many different directories as possible. Directories are viewed by human beings before being approved for submission and their inclusion helps increase your link popularity as you have more and more links pointing back to your site.
Since your submission is viewed by human beings it is important that you make sure your site is ready to be submitted. To get your site in shape to be submitted consider the following:
1. Make sure your site is completed. Fix all broken links. Have all pages completed. Make sure it loads properly and quickly. If you want get another opionion on whether it is ready to be submitted. Here is a good company that validates websites: http://www.htmlvalidator.com/
2. Find the correct category to be listed under. Although this can be frustrating it is important to take the time to find the correct category and sub-category for your site to be listed under. Choosing the wrong category could result in your site being denied.
3. Submit the correct URL. This needs to be your main domain and not sub-domains. In my case that would be http://www.sites-plus.com and nothing else. Do not add the index.html at the end when submitting.
4. Write an acceptable description of your site. You need to keep it to 2 sentences and nothing more. If you have any doubts about how to write a good description go to your category and look at the descriptions of sites already listed.
5. Use the official title of your site. This needs to be the REAL Title of your site and not just the part that shows in your browser. In my case that is Small Business Resources.
Generally it is accepted that 2 key directories to submit to are Yahoo and The Open Directory Project (ODP)
With Yahoo you will have to determine if you want a standard submission which is free or an express submission which costs $299.00. Submitting to the ODP is free.
Here is another site I came across that offers rankings on the best directories to submit to
http://www.strongestlinks.com/directories.php
For a more in depth look at submitting to directories read this article here:
http://www.strongestlinks.com/articles/dirSubmitGuide.php
In conclusion submitting your site to directories is an important part of the overall philosophy of getting quality links pointing back to your site. The more the merrier. If you want to see what it will take to get a Top 10 ranking for keywords relating to your site just look at the number of links your competitors have pointing to their sites.
You can easily do that by going here:
http://www.faganfinder.com/urlinfo
Enter your the URL for your competitor and the click on the Links Button. You can see how many links they have pointing back to them according to Yahoo, Google, and GigiBlast. You will see you need a lot of links pointing to your site to compete with them. Adding your site to as many directories as possible is one way to do that.
Copyright 2004 Jeff Schuman