::
Search Engine Promotion ::
:: Part 3 - Submitting to Directories (Google,
Yahoo,
& LookSmart)
::
Directories are search engines powered by human beings. Human
editors compile all the listings that directories have. Getting
listed with the web's key directories is very important, because
their listings are seen by many people. In addition, if you
are listed with them, then crawler-based search engines are
more likely to find your site and add it to their listings
for free.
Preparation
You should prepare before submitting to any directory. This
preparation means that you have written a 25 word or less
description of your entire web site. That description should
make use of the two or three key terms that you hope to be
found for.
If you have time, you should consider researching what are
the best terms for your site, rather than guessing at these.
It is essential that the description you write not make use
of marketing language. So, if you sold shoes and wanted to
be found for terms such as "athletic shoes" and
"running shoes," you might write a "just the
facts" description like this:
Purchase athletic shoes, running shoes, hiking boots and
other footwear plus try our cross country trail finder.
You would not want a description like this, which is full
of marketing hype, which editors dislike:
World’s LARGEST online shoe store with the best prices
from the greatest brands!!!!
Submitting To Yahoo
The web's oldest major directory, and still its most important,
is Yahoo. Getting listed with Yahoo is absolutely essential
to any site owner.
Yahoo has two submission options: "Standard," which
is free, and "Yahoo Express," which involves a submission
fee.
Anyone can use Standard submission to submit for free to
a non-commercial category. You'll know the category is non-commercial
if the "reverse bar" containing the category name
at the top of the category page is blue. You'll also know
because if you try to submit to a non-commercial category,
the Standard submission option will be offered in addition
to the Yahoo Express paid option, discussed further below.
Why might you choose to pay when the free search engine submission
option is available? Simply for a fast turnaround time. If
you use the free submit choice, there's no guarantee that
your submission will be reviewed quickly or at all.
Your submission to a non-commercial category is more likely
to be accepted if your content is not overtly commercial.
For example, submitting the home page of a site that sells
running shoes is likely to be seen as commercial and not accepted.
However, if you have a page within that web site that discusses
in depth how to select the right type of shoes for different
running races, then that page might be deemed helpful, non-commercial
information and accepted.
As for commercial categories, Yahoo requires that sites pay
a Yahoo Express submission fee of $300 (well, $299) per year.
This fee doesn't guarantee that you will be listed, only that
you'll get a yes or no answer about being accepted within
seven business days. However, the vast majority of most decent
sites are accepted.
If accepted, you'll be reevaluated after a year and charged
the submission fee again, if you want to stay in Yahoo's commercial
area. You should review the traffic you received from Yahoo
over the past year, to decide if it is worth paying the fee
again. If not, you can decline to be listed, and you will
not be charged.
The annual fee only applies to commercial categories. If
you submit to a non-commercial category using Yahoo Express
and get accepted into that area, the fee is charged only once,
not on an annual basis. You might get the opposite impression,
because you'll keep seeing references to "recurring annual
fee." However, in the terms and conditions for Yahoo
Express, the annual fee is only for sites in the Yahoo Commercial
Directory.
You'll know you are submitting to a commercial category if
the "reverse bar" containing the category name at
the top of the category page is yellow. You'll also know because
if you try to submit to a commercial category, only the Yahoo
Express submission option is offered.
How do you submit? If you are submitting for free to a non-commercial
category, click on the "Suggest a Site" link that
appears at the bottom of category page. That will bring up
a submission form. Fill it out, and you're done.
If you are paying to submit, you needn't pick a category.
Instead, just go to the URL below:
Yahoo Express Submission Form
From there, Yahoo editors will choose a category for you.
All you need to do is fill out the form that's presented.
The above tips are the bare essentials to getting listed
with Yahoo. If you are in a hurry, you can follow them, and
you'll probably get listed and receive some traffic from the
service. However, it would behoove you to do even more preparation
before submitting to this very important service.
Alternatively, you might consider working with a search engine
optimization company which has experience in submitting to
Yahoo. You'll have to pay for their services, but the price
may be worth it in relation to the additional traffic you'll
receive from a carefully conducted submission to Yahoo.
Finally, even if you don't get listed in Yahoo's own listings,
you may still appear in some of the results that Yahoo licenses
from Google. The next part of this guide explains how to submit
to Google. You can even get listed for free. However, if you
get listed in Yahoo's own results, you'll likely get much
more traffic from Yahoo.
Submitting To LookSmart
Another important directory is LookSmart. This is because
LookSmart provides the main listings used by the popular MSN
Search service. LookSmart's listings are also distributed
to other search engines. As with Yahoo, getting listed with
LookSmart is essential for any site owner.
As with Yahoo, LookSmart has a free submit option for its
non-commercial categories and a paid option for its commercial
ones. The paid options are covered in the Submitting Via Paid
Listings part of this tutorial, because they involve recurring
"cost per click" charges.
To submit for free, you must go to ,
which uses volunteer editors to catalog the web. LookSmart
owns Zeal and incorporates the non-commercial listings from
Zeal into its own directory.
Also as with Yahoo, your submission to the non-commercial
categories at Zeal must be for content that is truly non-commercial
in nature. If you attempt to submit something that is actually
commercial, it will be rejected.
How do you submit? You'll need to sign-up as a Zeal member,
via the URL below:
Zeal Sign-Up Form
Once you've done that and passed the subsequent member test,
you can then submit your site to the non-commercial category
you've selected by using the "Manage" option near
the top of the category page and the using "Add a Site
Profile" link near the top of where sites are listed.
Submitting To The Open Directory
The Open Directory is a volunteer-built guide to the web.
It provides the main results to Netscape Search and powers
the Google Directory. It also powers some results for a variety
of other services. Given this, being listed with the Open
Directory is essential to any site owner.
The good news is that submission is absolutely free. The
bad news is that this means there's no guaranteed turnaround
time to getting a yes or no answer about whether you've been
accepted.
To submit, locate the category you want to be listed in.
Then use the "add URL" link that appears at the
top of the category page. Fill out the form, and that's it
-- you've submitted.
If you are accepted, you should see your site appear within
about three weeks. If this doesn't happen, then you should
resubmit.
As with Yahoo, it's highly recommended that you take the
time to learn more about the Open Directory before submitting,
in order to maximize the amount of traffic you may receive.
In Conclusion
All the services above are must places to get listed. If
you did nothing more than get listed with them, your web site
would be available to a huge potential audience of web searchers.
In addition, you will make it more likely that crawler-based
search engines, which are discussed next, will also find your
web pages.
As you've seen, free search engine submission is possible
with all of these directories. However, commercial sites should
not view free submission as an end run around paying mandatory
submission fees levied against commercial sites or commercial
categories. Such attempts are likely to get your site rejected.
Don't waste your time. Move directly to the paid submission
options and start tapping into traffic right away.
Offline business all have basic start-up costs that must
be met, such as business licenses, phone bills, Yellow Pages
ads and so on. For online businesses, directory submission
fees should also be considered basic start-up costs, just
as domain name registration and web hosting fees are a crucial
part of anyone's budget.
(* all prices discussed are in US funds) |
