Directory Submissions
Author: Jeremy Herbert
It used to be that directories were the way to get your site high in the search engines. You’d go to Yahoo and say, “Hey, I have a website, you should list it.†They would, and you’d have traffic. It’s not quite so simple these days, but submitting your site to directories should be a part of any traffic building campaign. Now most directories get so little traffic that the actual traffic you receive from that directory is negligible, if any. However, what you’re after, again, is links.
This is another place to get one way links and from sites you wouldn’t be getting a link from. DMOZ and Yahoo Directory I want to cover the big two directories right away, since when a person says directory, usually one of these two names will pop into their head. And when it comes to getting high rankings for a website, you’ll almost certainly see that sites holding number 1 positions for competitive and semi-competitive terms are listed in at least one, if not both, of these important directories. Yahoo Directory is the oldest directory on the Internet, and likely one of the most trusted.
In fact, Yahoo didn’t used to be a search engine at all – they were a directory. When you went to search for a website on Yahoo.com, the results you got were actually the listings from the directory. Now those results are served up by Yahoo’s search engine, but the directory still exists, and having a link in Yahoo’s directory can be a major boost to your search engine ranking for your entire site.
Getting into Yahoo’s directory is relatively simple especially when compared to the next one – DMOZ. If you’re a non-commercial site, the listing is free. If you’re reading this report; however, you’re probably looking to make some money with your site. Yahoo charges $299 to review your site for inclusion, and if your site is included, it’s $299/yr.
The $299 fee does not guarantee inclusion, but it does guarantee they will review your site within 2 business days and get back to you in that time. If you want to make sure that your site is actually included, just make sure your site isn’t doing anything shady, is actually providing unique and useful content, and if you have AdSense running on your site I’d recommend taking it down for the review process.
The other major directory most people know about is DMOZ.org or the Open Directory Project. A listing in the DMOZ directory may be even more valuable than a link from the Yahoo Directory, and a listing on DMOZ is free. That’s the good news.
The bad news – it’s become notoriously difficult to get your site listed. The process can take several months. There is no paid option to get your site reviewed quickly, or even to guarantee your site gets reviewed at all. DMOZ is run by volunteers. Each category has an editor, and the criteria each editor looks for is different. And for some categories, the editor may decide that there are already plenty of good sites, and that no more are necessary for that category, so no matter how good your site is, they won’t include it.
Frustrating? Definitely!
But there is hope. Here’s probably your best option. Start with the broad category your site fits into. Let’s say your site is about plants. You’d start with the “Shopping†category.
Then you’d go to Home and Garden. To the right of the home and garden category, you’d see a number of over 12,000, which means there are over 12,000 websites that fall into that category. Your goal is to find a category with very few listings in it.
In this case, one that has very few listings is the annuals category with 6 as of this writing. Now if your site isn’t specifically about annuals, don’t submit your site to that category just yet. ODP editors are very picky and will not approve your site if it’s not exactly on topic.
So what you’d do is devote an entire section of your website to annuals. You’d want to go and look at all 6 sites included in the directory currently, look for commonalities, and then try to determine where improvements can be made. Then make those improvements on the annuals section of your website. Don’t try to cut too many corners here. You need to show your site is worthy of being included among the sites already listed.
And when you do submit your site, submit the section on annuals, not your homepage. Does this guarantee you’ll be accepted? Nope, but it does give you your best shot. Other Major Directories
Can’t afford Yahoo yet? Still waiting on DMOZ? Here are some other important directories that you can pay to be included in that are well worth their application fee:
• Business.com
• Joeant.com
• Zeal.com
• Goguides.org
• Gimpsy.com
• Skaffe.com
• Looksmart.com
Directories – All The Rest Now that I’ve covered the two big directories and several of the other major directories, let’s cover the rest of the directories that are easy to get into and that are free to get into. There are a lot of directories out there, thousands, if not tens of thousands of directories willing to provide you a link, you just have to submit your site to them.
There are a lot of pieces of software out there that claim to submit your site to directories for you, but in my experience, they are mostly a waste of time. Mostly, you end up getting a lot of spam and very little as far as links, and many of the links tend to be of low quality. This job is best done manually, despite the fact that it requires a lot more work. Also, if possible, submit your site with an email address that is the same as the domain you are submitting. You’ll see
more approvals that way. For example on my boatips.com site, I used the email address, garyr@boatips.com for submitting my site to the directories.
One other tip, if you have AdSense on your site it’s advisable to remove the ads during the period when you are submitting your site to the directories (or at least take it off the homepage). Once your budget allows, this is one of the first items I’d outsource. Submitting to article directories can tend to be a bit tedious.
Just keep in mind, you tend to get what you pay for, so opting for the cheapest service you can find may not be your best bet. Always test and track to see who’s providing you with the best results.
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