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Article:
Submitting your Web Site to Free Directories by: Adrian Kennelly Submitting your website to the various online directories is an important part of any Link Popularity campaign. Whilst your traffic from many directories may be minor or irrelevant, relevant incoming links to your website will help in your overall search engine link popularity. Other than Yahoo!, which is quite frankly beyond the reach of many smaller websites, paying for your directory submission can be a waste of money. You can get just as good a resultfrom submitting to free directories, or those that are free with a reciprocal link. If the directory is exceptionally good, the cost is low, and your directory ranking will be improved by paying a fee, do so if you wish. Personally, I wouldn't recommend you pay for what you can get free elsewhere. To start with on your submission campaign, in my opinion it is better to submit to those directories that will allow you to easily modify your listing. That way, you can correct mistakes and get your campaign down pat before submitting to directories that don't allow you to logon and modify your submission, thus saving yourself from wasting or reducing in value your efforts in those directories. What Directories to Submit To The best are Search Engine Friendly directories (those that actually have your site URL listed at some point, rather than outlinks that are simply code). Some will ask for a reciprocal link, some will not. One list of non-reciprocal directories is at http://info.vilesilencer.com/main.php?rock=seo-friendly.php. Opinion at the moment is suggesting that non-reciprocal or one-way links are better, although any relevant link is useful. Directories that encode their links are mostly useful for traffic if their Alexa Ranking is high enough. Directories that do not encode outgoing links will help your website's Search Engine Ranking. Deep Linking It can be worth linking to other pages on your site other than your main page. Before doing this, make sure that the directory you are submitting to permits you to both submit URLs other than your home page (some only allow top level submission), and for the same site to be submitted to different categories (not all directories permit what are essentially multiple submissions of the same website). This will work especially if you have online tools or directories (such as your links page) on your site that are useful and relevant to add to other directory categories. Choose the Relevant Directory Category Most directories will have many categories you can submit your site to. Decide on the one that is most relevant, preferably a keyword that you are aiming for high search engine ranking in, and try to submit to the same or similar category in every directory, at least for your main page (also see Deep Linking below). This will increase the ranking of your site relating to the keyword chosen. Submit to Different Categories If the directory allows multiple submissions, and your website is relevant in several categories, submit to all the relevant categories you can. This will increase the number of incoming links to your website. Again, carefully check the terms of any directory before trying this to make sure it is permitted. Write Title Write the title for your website. Try to include a keyword you are aiming for ranking in in the title, but make the use of it appropriate, don't just bang a keyword in for the sake of it; you could get your site submission rejected. Write Description Describe your website in a way that will attract visitors. The length of your description will vary from directory to directory, but most will be under 250 characters. Some will allow up to '1
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