Directory Submission: All What You Need To Know

Posted on Jul 4 2012 - 11:30am by CONTRIBUTOR

Editor’s Note: Guest Author Pradeep Yadav, a technology lover, analyzer and  love reporting about different technologies.

DEFINITION

If you are a business owner and you want promote your website and if this is 1st step towards promoting your site, then your best bet is to opt out for directory submission – the simple, smaller and easier way to start with. The basic aim of directory submission is to turn generates more traffic flow towards your website and improves the search engine rankings, and in fact, directory submissions are the most essential factor to consider while developing marketing strategies of your business, but simple definition of directory submission “Submitting your website to directories is a great way to increase your search engine rankings”

BENEFITS

Back link

Directory submission generates link building towards an e-commerce website and generates a back link and which in turn results in more traffic flow towards a website.

Search Engine Indexing

This is second most important benefits for directory submission is guaranteed search engine indexing. When you submit your website to directories, they will get indexed in the search engines. This will send you highly targeted traffic to your website even if promote your website ranking.

Frequent visits by spiders

Search engine spiders frequently visiting your websites and presenting on World Wide Web in order to gather information for archives. The more back links a website has the more frequent the spiders will visit the website and higher a website will rank.

Anchor Text

When you submit your links to web directories they allow you to enter a site title is different from the URL that can contain your keywords. This generates SEO anchor text for you and this helps you improve your search engine rankings.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

All directories have their own set of guidelines that all users have to follow. Seven things you have to consider while you do starting the directory submission:

  • Title
  • Description
  • Keywords
  • Category
  • URL / Domain
  • Email
  • Site Content

Title of your site

All directories has its own criteria where titles are concerned, do you know title is the most important your website. Some directories do not allow the usage of keywords in the title and only allow for the company or website name. In such instances, you should only use the official name of your site without any keywords.

There are many directory accept your site title and keyword but some directory not accept your site title and keyword after that follow there are a few points you should keep in mind when writing your titles:

The title should be relevant to the purpose of the site and aptly describe (in a few words) what the site is about.

  • The title should be meaningful and not just contain a list of keywords.
  • The title should not be too promotional and read like an ad text; instead it should be as objective as possible.
  • The title shouldn’t be too lengthy total words for title between 20 to 50 characters are usually fine.
  • THE TITLE SHOULD NOT BE IN ALL UPPER CASE.
  • Avoid the use of an exclamation mark ‘!’ in the title.
  • Avoid repetition of keywords.
  • Avoid words like ‘best’, ’leader’, ’cheapest’, ’greatest’ or any other exaggerated adjective.

Description

Descriptions are the very important for your website. Directory required a description for your site, not for all but some important keyword your site. Simple guideline for writing acceptable descriptions would be

  • All the points mentioned above for the title
  • Do not mention any pricing details or any other promotional details that are subject to change with time. Again you may include features and benefits as long as it doesn’t make the description sound too promotional.
  • Most directories wouldn’t want you to mention a phone number and address details in the description – so it’s best to avoid putting in those details.
  • Avoid Capitalizing The First Letter Of Every Word In Your Description.
  • Try and avoid ending your description with ‘and others’ or ‘etc’ or even ‘…’
  • The description that is present in your website constitute the most important keyword that your site content.

Keywords

Most directories aren’t too strict about what you enter in the keywords field but just make sure you don’t repeat any keyword more than once and also make sure you have the keywords entered in the format required. You write an all keyword a separated by a comma, and some may be requiring separated by a space.

Category

Category is the best important is the submission your site but that many people make the mistake of selecting the category too fast without checking if there would be a more relevant category. After that you take time and selected a right category, if the directory editor finds it suitable your site would be added under the newly created category you suggested.

URL / Domain

  • Submit the domain or URL in the correct format. Most directories accept a url in the format of http://www.mydomain.com while some directories accept it without the http://
  • Do not submit parked domains and domains that have no content
  • Do not submit domains that redirect to another site.
  • Unless specified, only submit your home page URL and not a URL pointing to one of your inner pages, e.g. http://www.xyz.com and not http://www.xyz.com/this-page.html  Also, when submitting your home page url, do not include the ‘index.***’ portion of your URL – it should just be http://www.xyz.com
  • Some directories are particular about adding a forward slash ‘/’ at the end of the URL. Remember to do so where mentioned.
  • Very few directories accept domains hosted on free hosting services or domains that are not registered – avoid submitting these kinds of domains.

Email

Some directories don’t accept your email address at the first go, reason the format and use of email client. Say, for example, if you’re submitting http://www.xyz.com, try and use contact@xyz.com although don’t worry too much about this as there are very few directories that are particular about the email address entered. It is preferable to include the email address of your site domain.

Site Content

Here are a few other general guidelines about a site’s content that most directories are particular

  • Never submit a site that is under construction or is about to launch. Make sure your site is fully operational before you have it submitted.
  • Do not submit sites that have no content.
  • Some directories don’t accept sites having just one page. It is preferable for your site to have a few pages.
  • Your site should have a substantial amount of content and not be full of affiliate links or contain just ads all over.
  • A few directories do not accept sites with ‘mirror content’, i.e. sites having the same content but different domains.

Many directories get plenty of submissions a day and it could take just one reason for an editor to reject your site. So be careful and try and stick as close to the guidelines as possible.

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