Some education is essential to enlighten you about this form of interactive marketing. Directories aren't Search Engines; they are web sites or information portals which use analysts on staff to review submissions from companies who want to be listed in their Directory. Yahoo would be the penultimate example of this type of a portal. But there are literally thousands of other sites that group and list web sites based on their analysis criteria. Here are some tips garnered from years of providing these services to our clients.
1. How do you find Directories? I don't have an easy solution for you, as we've spent years developing and refining (ongoing) our own list of Directories. But, look around on the Internet using Search Engines to find popular sites that list resources in your vertical market segment.
2. Directory listings are a great value, as they provide a long-term listing, unlike Search Engine rankings which are much more volatile. Once you achieve a listing you are typically locked into a Directory's database for a very long time.
3. Let's start with the twenty-ton gorilla in this market, Yahoo! Spend time carefully reviewing their various categories, then take the plunge and use their "Business Express" service which costs just under $200. (USD) to submit your site. Don't, I repeat don't submit unless you have carefully analyzed where you belong in their huge category selections; if you make a mistake you only have one chance to get a new or revised listing, as they aren't very forgiving of those who don't do their homework before submitting.
4. Be patient when submitting to Directories, as most are getting tens or hundreds of thousands of submissions per day - it will take 30-90 days to actually get listed. Keep an accurate record of sites you have posted to and then check back 60-90 days later and resubmit if necessary, but don't spam them, as this will not garner any results.
5. Never submit a site unless it is ready for primetime, with no broken links, under construction pages, incomplete text, graphics that aren't loading properly, etc. Indexers are very busy, once they see a site which has problems they will click to the next entry on their list and your hard work is to no avail.
6. Be prepared with the proper marketing materials for this type of a campaign, including a working title for your site which is 6-8 words, several groups of keywords that are separated by commas and spaces of varying lengths, approx 10-20 and 30-75 keywords, and a longer description of your site which can be one to two sentences.
7. Part of the required expertise involved in this process is in the actual category selection - carefully select which category or categories where you think your site fits by looking at others in this category to determine if you fit into this classification.
8. Be aware we are seeing a shift to fee-based submissions to shortcut the process - Yahoo started the trend over a year ago, now LookSmart and other top tier Directories are starting to do the same. The tradeoff is of course minimizing time to market - we recommend using the commercial services to our clients.
9. Want to know if this process has actually done anything for you? Check your log files or web site analysis software and look at where your traffic is coming from.
10. If you are getting significant traffic from a small list of Directories you may want to go back to their web site and pay for their premium listing services to drive more traffic. These enhanced listings services typically enable you to bold your listing or add graphical content which enhances the textual description, usually only for a few hundred dollars per year.
About The Author
Lee Traupel has 20 plus years of business development and marketing experience - he is the founder of Intelective Communications, Inc., http://www.intelective.com a results-driven marketing services company providing proprietary services to clients encompassing startups to public companies.
Effective Management Of Your Customer Services Keep your customers happy and develop trust and a good reputation by serving their needs as best as you can. Your customers are the life-blood of your business....
10 Symptoms of Workplace Stress Symptoms such as these cost companies billions of
dollars each year in health care costs,
absenteeism, accidents, quality control, personnel
turnover, and vario...
The Secret of Come Betting You probably know that the key to profits is the ability to add "free odds" to your flat bet - and give the casino a zero advantage on those added odds.
8 Ultimate Secrets Skyrocket Your Success! Whenever I ask people this question, "what do you really want in your life?" They will usually give me answers as follows. "I want to have more success in my li...
So She Stood You Up Have you ever had this experience? You finally found the nerve to ask that "special girl" out on a date to dinner and a movie. Without even hesitating she gav...
Creating Better Relationships Everything you do in life is to achieve happiness of some kind. Achieving happines should always be your main goal in life. And the majority of happiness you wi...
The Convenience of Futon Bunk Beds Futon bunk beds are a recent phenomenon, and have their roots in the natural evolution of futons. In recent years, futons have significantly improved in style, ...
How to Send an E-mail to God Would you like to know how to get in touch with God so that he can hear your prayers? You can find out how to do so and find more faith at ...
What Your Competition Knows About Traffic Need more traffic? There's a lot you can learn from spying on your competition. Your competition has traffic sources that you can easily swipe by following thes...
The Mental Side of Match Play This article covers the fundamentals of good match play, and in general focuses on psychological aspects of golf. However, specifically, it offers useful tips ...
Make Your E-mail Signature File WORK for You When you think about how many e-mails you actually send a day, it's probably more than you realize! Each one provides a chance to slip in your own subtle marke...
The Secret Meaning Of Compulsive Eating Behaviors For any person struggling with resolving a food issue, the realization eventually awakens that the food issue was about something much deeper. The food is a la...
Kitchenaid Stand Mixers – A Kitchen Work Horse Kitchenaid stand mixers are very popular in today's kitchens and it is easy to see why. These stand mixers have stood the test of time and have shown themselves...
A Rain Secret To Change Your Mind In order to change old negative thoughts, you need to shock the nervous system. We can get into ruts that can become graves. So look at the ways you can change ...
Search Engine Optimisation – Why And How To Do It Crawler, Robot or "Organic" search engines have been around since the beginning of the Internet. They rank their listings by analysing the content of your web p...
Print this page