Advantages of Using SEO Directory Submissions

If you are searching for effective ways to promote your website, you might want to look at the general, niche, or business web directories. Any of these can feature in a SEO marketing plan. They web directory offers the web visitor a convenient one stop destination for locating a wide-range of useful information. In addition, for the webmaster, the directories offer the advantage of increasing a websites visibility and search engine ranking.
A web directory which is based on a specific niche or business practice offers a great opportunity to submit your website listing and have the potential to attract visitors. A quality directory will allow its visitors to search by location or category, which makes it extremely easy for the user to find the most helpful information. Also if you use a specific business directory you might be able to list additional company information which might include a company overview, directions, a logo, and all relevant contact information.
Beyond the fact that the web directories are highly effective at attracting would-be customers, they are equally beneficial as a tool in your search engine optimization (SEO) arsenal. A directory offers the site owner a chance to get an attractive inbound link to their website, which has the potential to increase rankings in the search engines and page rank of the applicable page. If a well-chosen selection of directories is used, then this can result in a number of inbound links coming into a website. Using the directories when a website is relatively new is also a great way to get the search engines to notice a site quickly and this also helps get the web pages indexed.
A great feature to the web directories that you might want to look for is the ability to add deep links, meaning you can point to a particular page on the website and not direct all visitors to the main homepage. The benefit of this is that the end-user is directed straight to the information you want them to see in a single click, and not having to search for the information themselves after arriving on your site. A link of this nature is much more efficient and helpful. The ability to deep link also means that you have the opportunity to rank internal pages and not just the homepage.
It often benefits to search for the quality web directories in your linking building efforts to avoid wasting valuable time. You can use either free or paid web directories. If looking for the most positive results from submitting your sites to the directories, it often pays to use the high quality directories that are human edited, even though this might mean a small charge is payable for the submission.

See more on increasing the ranking of a website with a high-quality and user-friendly SEO directory for all-types of websites.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sam_J_Loeb

The Top 5 Benefits of Directory Submission

Business owners and SEO Services experts alike recognize the importance of directory submissions for increased traffic and sales. It is one of the most affordable SEO options available and offers great opportunities for business promotion. In fact, it is one of the most important factors to consider when developing your business's internet marketing strategy. When you use directory submissions to increase traffic to your site, you will notice that your search engine ranking increases; and as your ranking increases, so will the amount of traffic on your site. As you can see, directory submission is a win-win prospect that you simply can't afford to ignore. Here are the top 5 benefits of directory submission for you online business website.

1. One-way links. Search engines place a premium on one-way links rather than reciprocal links, and directories are a great way to obtain those valuable one-way links. Search engines also place great value on links from sites that are well-established and are relevant to your market niche. Since directories allow you to place your listing in the categories that most closely fit with your product or service, you can rest assured that search engines will consider these links relevant. And you have the option of choosing older, more well-established directories that will show search engines that your links come from authoritative websites.

2. Search engine listings. Once you submit your site to a directory and your site is listed, it will only be a matter of days before the major search engines begin listing your URL as well. Robots are constantly searching for new websites and will find your website fast if it is listed in a directory.

3. Keyword relevance. Having your site listed in a web directory can help build keyword relevance, which in turn results in more traffic to your website.

4. Brand awareness. Directory submission is essential for increasing brand awareness.

5. Affordability. Directory submission is one of the most affordable SEO strategies you can find. Many directories will list your site for free, and even those sites that charge to list your site don't charge a prohibitive amount. Directory submission is easily one of the most economically reasonable ways to address link popularity, brand awareness, and keyword targeting for your website.

One of the drawbacks to directory submission is that is a tedious process. SEO experts and internet marketing professionals have discovered that manual submission to directories is the most efficacious way to complete the directory submission task since each directory has its own rules and regulations for submission. Using submission software runs a great risk of rejection since such software is unable to customize your listing for each directory and can't choose appropriate categories and subcategories as accurately as a human can. But manual submission can take a lot of time and effort.

If you're truly committed to using directory submission as an integral part of your overall internet marketing strategy, you may consider utilizing the service of an internet marketing expert. Not only can an internet marketing expert help you determine how best to use directory submissions within your strategy, but he can also tell you which directories to pursue and which to avoid. He will know which niche directories most closely match your product or service, and he can even take care of the directory submission task on your behalf.

Whether you choose to take on the task of directory submissions yourself or hire a professional to do it for you, be sure to take advantage of the benefits of directory submissions. You'll be glad you did when you see the increased traffic to your site and when you watch your visitors turn into loyal customers!

Seomul Evans is a senior SEO services consultant with "SEO 1 Services" and Add Url cafe.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Seomul_Evans

Web Directories - Performance, Purpose, Problems - A General Guide to Web Directories

The path to building a successful web directory is far from a simple task. It requires a certain amount of devotion to take a web directory script and transform it into a heavily used directory. Web directories contain more complexities than meets the eye, and I have learned first hand that the development of a quality web directory is no walk in the park. But a good web directory is worth its weight in gold, for both webmasters & internet surfers alike. Let us enter the world of web directories.

A web directory acts much like a search engine, but on a much smaller scale. Web directories are essentially a categorized index of websites that have been submitted by website owners. Directories normally have search features, allowing users to search through the entire index, just like a search engine. The main differences between a directory and a search engine is that very few directories contain the amount of links that a search engine does. Search engines also collect data from websites, which is used to categorize and rank them. Directories lack the ability to "crawl", or exam websites as search engines due, therefore the only information a directory contains on a particular website is the information that was submitted by the website owner. Most directories use meta tags and keywords to search for websites, where as search engines use complex algorithms that take into consideration much more than meta tags (the value of meta tags in search engines has actually declined). Web directories are not the most popular internet search tools because huge search engines like Google and Yahoo are much more convenient to use and contain a vast amount of resources available to be searched. The largest and most popular web directory is the Open Directory Project (DMOZ), whose links are indexed by Google, Yahoo, and the majority of other search engines. Google and Yahoo both have their own web directories as well. Though independently owned web directories may not be so popular for internet searchers, they do have their benefits for webmasters & surfers alike.

Web directories can have several purposes, it all depends on what the administration's intended goals are. Some web directories are purely advertising hot spots, while others focus on driving targeted traffic to the directory. Some directories are free, some paid, others both. Directories can have broad topics, or specific topics. Lets start with the different types of web directories.

First, we have what is commonly referred to as a "niche" directory. Niche directories have a specific topic, or niche, and the links found within the directory reflect that. Examples of a niche would be automotive directories, sports directories, shopping directories, web promotion directories, etc. Niche directories are most beneficial to internet *searchers; they have a specific topic and therefore *surfers and *searchers have a better chance of finding what they want. In a human edited niche directory, you are very unlikely to find spam sites as well.

We will label the next kind of web directory as a "Free for All" directory. Free for all directories have no specific topic. They are very broad in their category selection and links are usually hidden behind several sub-categories. Free for all websites can benefit webmasters so long as the "no follow" tag is not applied (page rank increase), however it is in your best interest to avoid free for all directories for several reasons. Using a free for all directory to search for a website is more likely than not going to require you to sort through heaps of spam. A lot of free for all directories are not human edited due to the massive amount of link requests they receive, and websites are not carefully examined before being approved into the directory. The link quality of some free for all directories is extremely poor. Also, a lot of free for all directories extract data from other directories; how original. No sense in supporting the lack of creativity or devotion in such web directories. Despite a flood of low quality free for all directories, there are some very good ones available. A well organized, human edited (human edited = higher quality links) free for all directory is a great place to search for websites. It also serves webmasters with increased website exposure and if they are lucky, the directory is indexed by Google and other search engines, therefore improving its ranking on search engine result pages.

The final type of web directories that will be examined are the poorest quality ones. Often referred to as "link farms" these directories are not human edited, due to contain high quality links, lack organization and unique features, and more often than not they become blacklisted from the major search engines. Searching these type of web directories is useless, and it's highly recommended that you do not support such sites. Furthermore, if you are a webmaster, submitting your website to link farms will substantially decrease your popularity amongst search engines. These directories due more harm then good, and consequently give other directories a bad name.

Whether you are submitting a website or searching for one, you will achieve the best results with a high quality niche directory. Webmasters, here are the common submission options for most web directories: Free submission: Submit your website to the directory for free. Simply fill out the form and wait for approval. A "no follow" tag is often placed on free submissions. Regular Submission: A small fee is usually necessary for regular submissions. Regular submissions can sometimes use the "no follow" tag. The main benefit is that submission approval times are significantly faster for regular submissions. Reciprocal Submissions: Free submissions that require a reciprocal link of the web directory to be placed onto the website you are submitting. Reciprocal submissions sometimes use "no follow' tags, but often do not. Cost is free with reciprocal submissions. Featured Submissions: Paid submissions that grant you premium listing (websites listed in special section of category, generally above regular links), fast submission approval, and paid submissions do not place "no follow" tags on your links, meaning you gain a back link for search engine ranking benefits. Featured and regular submission fees are generally charged per year, and prices vary depending on the directory and the traffic it receives.

Web directories have benefits for both webmasters and internet users. For webmasters, web directories main benefit is website exposure. Webmasters submit their websites to directories to increase their exposure. Not only can they receive traffic from people using the directory, but they can also benefit from a back link; a link to their website indexed by Google. Google ranks pages in several ways, but back links is one of the most important. A quality back link to your website increases your Google page rank. Enough quality directory back links, and your on your way to the top spot in Google search results. Bottom line: Web directories can increase your websites exposure by sending targeted traffic your way. For people using web directories as a search tool, web directories can offer you a big advantage over search engines. Search engine indexing is a big contest between website owners and therefore a lot of high quality content gets left out of the search engine result pages. Top results often go to corporations, big business, or highly devoted marketers. What about the little enthusiast and personal websites that contain valuable knowledge otherwise unavailable on the web?

Well, a lot of these quality content websites can be found in web directories. If you are having trouble finding what your looking for in search engines, try searching for a niche directory and I bet you will find what your looking for. Furthermore, using web directories supports smaller businesses and helps the little guy out. Not everyone has the time or money to spend on internet marketing or website promotion, and web directories are a great way for these small websites to gain some exposure. Big search engines have monopolized the internet search market, and it makes the relationship between big search engines and website owners way to critical. Google doesn't like you, and your sales drop 75 %. Now that does not seem right, does it? If more people frequented web directories, directory owners would gain a larger slice of the search engine market.

There is a large number of web directories on the internet today that have been blacklisted by Google. It is best to avoid these directories at all costs; having your link listed there will most likely negatively affect your search engine rankings. But how do you know which directories to submit your URL to and which ones to avoid? These guidelines in rating web directories may help:

1. Organization

- Web Directories should be well organized and categorized.

- Categories should be, neither, too broad nor too narrow. Category organization is important, but a directories search feature holds more value for finding links.

- Links should be easily accessible.

- Links should be posted into the correct category. If they are not, this is a sign of automated link approval, which should never be used in a directory. (Even the largest, most powerful of web directories are human edited).

- Poor quality and spam links should not be accepted into any decent web directory.

2. Advertisements

- A quality directory should contain a free submission option, so it is necessary for directories to offer sponsored listings and sale advertisement space. However, the page should not be cluttered with ads. This is a sign that the directory administration is too focused on making a quick buck than enhancing the internet experience.

- If the directory has a specific topic, or niche, than the advertisements should pertain to that topic. Off topic and irrelevant ads do not belong on niche directories.

3. Page Rank (PR)

- Rumor has it that it's possible to fake some page rank indicators. Make sure your page rank comes from a reliable source when examining the PR of a web directory.

- Page rank is important factor in website popularity. However, directories that boast high page ranks, or have their page rank in the directory name or slogan typically use the page rank factor to compensate for their downfalls. It's like bragging...and you want a modest web directory. Find a directory that shares and uses their page rank to the benefit of directory users, not a directory that clearly lacks in features but boasts a high PR.

- Directories that display website links within a category in descending order of PR are less desirable than those that display links based on popularity (unique hits). Most desirable first, not highest PR; very beneficial to new websites attempting to build initial PR.

4. No Follow Tag

- A web directory that uses "no follow" tags on all links is useless.

- "no follow" tags are acceptable on free submissions. Reciprocal & featured submissions should not be tagged as "no follow" links. This gives value and meaning to featured (sponsored) & reciprocal links, while controlling the amount of links indexed by search engines to a reasonable number.

- In a quality directory, do not fear a "no follow" on your free submission. A good directory brings in targeted traffic, and though you may be missing out on that back link, there is still a lot of potential for increasing traffic.

5. Reviews, Marketing, & Promotion

- Search around for reviews and recommendations on web directories. There are some really good resources when it comes to choosing quality directories.

- A web directory should be marketed to both webmasters & internet surfers. If a directory only attracts webmasters, what kind of web traffic is it likely to bring? Look into how the web directory is promoted and marketed.
These 5 guidelines can help you distinguish between low quality link farms and high quality, effective web directories. I hope this information helps you in your website's marketing and promotion campaign, in terms of website directory submission.

Teal Reid, SYC Automotive Directory Administrator

http://www.sycdirectory.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Teal_List

How to Start Your Own Web Directory

Have you ever run across one of the thousands of home-brewed internet directories and wondered how they came to be? You know, directories in the mold of Yahoo or DMOZ, but run by individuals or small businesses? And, perhaps such directories operate in a niche, such as Home and Garden, or for a particular geographical area like a City Directory. All three of these directories run on the same script...PHP Link Directory, also known as PHPLD. You Can Run Your Own Directory You can run your own directory--it's very easy--by installing one of many ready-made directory scripts. I run a few of my own, and I'll explain here how to get started. Most Popular Script: PHP Link Directory The most popular script for DIY web directories is PHP Link Directory, also called PHPLD. You can Google the phrase "PHPLD" to learn more. PHPLD costs $25 for version 3.3 (most current as of January 2009) if you display a link to PHPLD on all the pages of your directory, or $75 if you want to remove all links to PHPLD. Also, there is a free version (2.2) of PHPLD, but it's older, and quite feature-barren. To get the script, visit the PHPLD website and make payment arrangements there. You may also wish to join the support forums (sorry, but it's another $10 to join the support forums).

Installing the Directory The next step is (gulp!) to install the directory script. You'll need ftp access to your server. Generally speaking, the process involves:

• Copying the script files to your hosting account. You'll need mySQL database services with your hosting account (99.5% of hosting accounts offer this)
• Then, setting file permissions (this is pretty easy to do with any ftp program) for a few files after you upload them.
• You'll need to create a mySQL database on your server.
• Then, simply run the phpLD installation file.

Finding a Theme for Your Directory

If you followed the links above to the directories that I operate, you'll notice that each directory has a different look, or theme. This is done through a special theme or template that you install. There are paid themes and free themes--plenty of the free themes are quite good looking. We have made a few free themes, which you can find at the PHPLD website. Or you can simply Google the phrase "free PHPLD theme", and you can probably find a dozen or so without too much trouble.

How to Install the PHPLD Theme/Template And so, here's how to install the template: Download your free template and unzip it so that you have all the template files (about 30 files, depending on the template) in a single folder. In the case of the Strawberry Fields template, you should have a folder called "strawberry_fields" with all the template files in there. Then, ftp your folder and place it into the folder on your web server where you installed PHPLD within the folder called "templates". See the image just below to see the folder where you should drop your template folder. PHPLD Folders

Activate Your Template Now that you have uploaded your template files, to activate the template, simply log in to the admin section of PHPLD. You log in by going to [http://www.YourDirectory.com/admin] and typing in your log in and password. Then browse to the section SYSTEM, then TEMPLATE MANAGER to select your template.

Promoting Your Directory First, Create Categories For Your PHPLD Installation First, you'll want to create your categories. To create categories the slow way, log in to your admin section and browse to DIRECTORY then CATEGORIES. Once there, hit the button "New Category". You can enter your categories one at a time. The "fast" way to create categories is to find a category dump--a pre-loaded file of hundreds or thousands of categories created specifically to be installed into a PHPLD installation. To find a category dump, you'll need to hunt around Google (use the search phrase "PHPLD category dump"). Once you have the dump, you'll need some fairly good mySQL skills to enter the category dump into your system. If you don't know how to do that, you might ask for some help on the PHPLD forums at the PHPLD main site. How to Promote Your Directory Now, how to promote your directory? You'll want to get the word out so that visitors will come to your site and submit their sites. Well here are some ideas:

• List your directory with the "directory of directories" sites such as vilesilencer.com and directorycritic.com. Both sites offer free basic listings. There are many similar sites, but those two are the biggest.
• For a local directory, put an ad on Craigslist offering free listings to local businesses and sites.
• If you are a forum poster, put a note in your posting signature that you offer free listings in your directory.
• Add some links by yourself--the best directories are chock full of useful sites. Feel free to add your favorite sites to your directory to get it jump-started.

Good luck, and have fun! Here are some examples of web directories that I run in PHPLD: The first is my general directory at . But, PHPLD is quite versatile; for example it can be used for a local City directory, like our Austin Local Business Directory.

The preceding is written by Michael Spada at Medical Website Design Pros, a Medical Website Design firm.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Michael_Spada

Web Directory Basics, Submissions, And The Free Directory Submitter

Search engine optimization (otherwise known as seo) is the most known way to promote your website. A free directory submitter assists in this hugely and we'll talk more about that later in this article. It's a known fact; most webmasters give to more time optimizing their site than they give to actually building the website itself. Why? Well, let's think about it, what is the purpose of constructing and maintaining a site if your website has little or no traffic? Isnt the entire purpose of constructing your site to attract traffic and expose them to your web sites message? Absolutely! This is the why seo is a crucial element to a successful website.

There are a variety of different forms of seo. Often times, certain types of seo become extremely well known throughout the internet community and then they fade into the background as other fads surface. One of the first popular types of seo is a process called internet directory submission.

Internet directory submission is not a complicated process; in fact, it is based upon a simple rule of thumb. People who surf the web have permission to an enormous amount of wisdom nonetheless, if the information on the net were not organized in a few way or another, it would be literally impossible to find what their searching for. This is why directories are so important. Web directories, such as DMOZ (aka The Open Directory Project) are massive, categorized directories of internetsites. DMOZ is one of the oldest types of these internet directories around and is operated by by a group of commited volunteers who manually view and approve each page before it is added to the directory.

Here's a question you may have. With Google and other query based search engines, how does internet directory submission play such an substantial role in the overall picture of website optimization? Well, there are two distinguishable benefits to submitting your site to web directories. Well, to start with, huge search engines such as Google use web directories to search for query results. When the user enters their query or search, Googles search then identifies the results by scanning through the thousands of pages located in net directories. If your website is listed in the web directories, whalla, the search engine is more likely to recognize the relevancy because the site pages have already been indexed and categorized by the website directory.

The second benefit of submitting your site to a website directory is a bit more complex than the first. seo experts will tell you that one of the most effective ways to increase exposure on the web is through receiving inbound links to your website by other sites of similar content. When you list your site in a directory, either manually or coupled with a free web directory submitter, you are linking your website to the web directory itself as well as any search engine who spiders the website directory (this includes Google). This can boost your placement in search engine results hugely.

Now that you understand the importance of directory submission, directory submission how the process actually works. There are literally hundreds, perhaps even thousands of web directories on the web. Here are net directories (such as DMOZ) offer free internet directory submissions. This simply means you do not have to fork over any money in order to list your website in their web directory. Other online directories charge lots for listing your website in their directory. Obviously, if your website is listed in a larger number of online directories, the more impact this will have on your sites placement in search engines.

To submit your site to each website directory, you must first choose which online directories you would like to use and then visit them, filling out a form by your site url and other information relating to your website. A variety of webmasters do this frequently in order to be sure their sites are showing up in as a variety of internet directories as possible. An obvious downer is this can become a very time-consuming task.

In order to automate the process and make it much more convenient for netmasters, programmers have created free website directory submitter software that can complete the internet directory submission process for you and reduce or eliminate the hassle of searching the internet for and submitting your website to the non-paid internet directories.

A free website directory submitter will offer you the benefit to enjoy the advantages associated by having your website listed in directories without the cost. This is a super seo technique that is easy to maintain and a free directory submitter program doesn't cost you a thing, so it's easy on the wallet too. This allows you to easily optimize your new and existing sites as frequently as you would like. Thanks for perusing this article, have a super day!

The above information concerning free directory submitter and free search engine submission sent to us by Chad McDonald from: http://www.TonOFebooks.com/Free_Directory_Submitter.html

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Chadder_McD.