Search Engine Optimisation Articles
Finding directories to get listed in
Not as easy as it sounds, is it?
Well, if you’re reading this article then you’re either having a few problems, or you’re not too sure if you’ve covered all the bases!
This article will take a look at some of the places you can get your site listed in and how you can go about finding some niche directories as well.
The main players
I’m not going into this in much detail as I assume that most of you reading this will already know the main players.
When launching your site, the first places to submit it to are:
- The Open Directory Project
- Joe Ant
- Yahoo
- Business.com
- Anything else is a bonus.
It should be noted that if your get an ODP listing, then don’t bother submitting to Google, as your site will automatically be included.
The Open Directory Project
This is the biggest human indexed directory there is (maintained by volunteers who edit individual categories).
When you submit your site to a category, have a look at the other sites there and find out who links to them (use the back links function on the Google toolbar). Then ask for a listing!
Also, have a look in the regional categories and find guides and directories for the local areas that you operate in and ask them to link to you as well.
If you don’t operate in a regional area, but do cover a specific subject area, then look for guides and directories in that subject area.
When you’ve done all that in the ODP, then go to Yahoo and do the same.
Searching for directories
Using any search engine you will be able to find sites that have listings for other sites (directories). You just have to know how to look for them!
You should not search for the subject area of your site on its own, as you will just turn up results for all manner of different sites.
You need to be specific.
Search for your subject area along with your locality and the phrase “directory” or “listings”.
For example, “web marketing directories” (web marketing doesn’t have a locality), or “Scottish blue widget directories”.
Vary the order of the search terms to bring up different results and try variations on the wording. For example, “Scottish recruitment agencies” brings up different results from “recruitment agencies in Scotland”.
Why bother?
After all, your visitors mostly come from search engine results and not directory referrals, right?
Well, yes and no.
If you operate in a niche market, then you may find that you will receive more quality customers from niche directories than from search engines.
Also, search engines rank websites based on many factors. One such factor is link popularity (ie the number of websites that link to you).
This is the principle that Goggle's Pagerank is based on (ie if a website links to you, then they are “voting” for you, so the more links you have pointing to your site then the more “popular” your site is.
It is thought that this factor is taken into account when search engines rank a website, but no-one really knows to what extent though.
It should be noted that links pointing to your site are only beneficial if they are on the same theme as your site.
Search engines may penalise websites (by kicking them out of the results for a period of time – even for good) who actively seek links from any old place (ie, they penalise link farms – sites that trade links for the sole purpose of increasing link popularity).
At the end of the day, a link from an unrelated site is not going to bring qualified traffic to your site, so why do it?
Main points to remember
Check your competition to see who is linking to them
– then ask for a link as well.
Use the main directories to find smaller niche market directories to get
listed in.
Stay away from link farms. They will do more bad than good!
If you cover the main players you will be fine to launch your site. Finding the niche directories will enable you to increase your qualified traffic in the long term.
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