How To Manage Directory Submissions

'More than 80% of the traffic comes from the top ten search engines'. You have probably read this statement many times and it's true at least for the majority of websites. So how about web directories? Is submitting your site to them a waste of time? Even if directories usually don't deliver a lot of traffic they contribute inbound links to your site increasing its link popularity a very important factor used by search engines to rank websites. When someone queries a search engine using a keyword relevant to your site, higher is your site link popularity higher are its chances to come up near the top of the results. Submitting your site to web directories will help you increase its visibility and attract more traffic from search engines. However you need an overall strategy to successfully manage your directory submissions or you will only lose your time and energies. Is your site ready? You should never forget that directories don't exist to give away free links. Their purpose is to provide their visitors with good quality sites. If you want some chances to get listed you need a well designed web site containing useful and original content or offering useful services. Your site must also be complete without broken links or links to 'under construction' pages. Other things that can cause a rejection of your submission are: too many ads (especially pop-ups and pop-unders), automatic redirections to another domain, having the same exact content of other sites (example: the 'self replicated' sites some companies provide to their affiliates). Preparing your listing details Open your favorite text editor and write down the following informations: 1) your web site URL. 2) your website Title. Some directories accept only the official site name as title, others allow some descriptive keywords, but in general stuffing a lot of keywords in your title is not acceptable. Write 2-3 different titles in compliance with these different rules. 3) your website description. Write what your site is about in a couple of sentences. Avoid superlatives, exclamation marks, excessive hype and generally everything that makes your description sound like an ad. Description should be written in third person. Avoid expressions like 'we offer', 'we are ...'. 4) a set of search keywords related to your site. Separate the keywords with commas, then write down the same set of keywords this time separated by spaces. Some directories require the first format, others the second one. 5) your full name and email address. Once you have done save the document. By copying and pasting these informations into the submissions forms you will save time and avoid errors. Or you can utilize Clipboard Magic http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Searching/Directories/ Yahoo: