A Quick Guide To Web Directories

Posted by MarkFrancis | 12:03 PM

If you are a seasoned Internet marketer, then it is common knowledge that submitting to web directories can dramatically increase your page rank. If you are a newbie webmaster, then you might be quite in doubt as to how web directories can do for you. This article would relay to you what exactly is a web directory, how they work, and how you can use them in promoting your site. By the end of the article, I want you to go add your link to one of the web directories on the Internet and see how it would work for you.

What are web directories?

Simply put, a Web Directory is a collection of web sites presented in a categorized format. I suppose that you know how Yellow Pages looks like, a web directory is pretty much the same thing, only this time websites are categorized in such a way that internet users can easily navigate through them and find the website that they need.

How do web directories work?

A web directory submission is one type of marketing strategy you can employ. By simply adding your website in web directories it can dramatically increase your site’s exposure and your pagerank. Why so? Of course aside for submitting your website name, you would naturally add your website link or URL to the site. This constitute for one back link. What do you need outbound links for? Increasing the number of your outbound links would relatively increase your pagerank.

A pagerank simply refers to your position in search engines results. For instance, if an online user searches for "car parts", along with your SEO-content and bunch of good back links, you would likely hit the first few pages of the search results, thus increasing the exposure of your website. If back links are what you are after, then submitting your site to web directories is one effective way to get some.

Web directories are also one way of acquiring permanent links. Permanent links are very valuable since you would have your live link posted on web directories for good or at least during the lifetime of the web directory where you posted your link. It is important to take note though, that offering permanent links are still in the discretion of web directories owner.

Aside from improving your page rank, web directories are also a form of web advertising. In addition to using search engines, online users also rely on web directories to direct them to certain websites they are searching for. Since websites in web directories are categorized accordingly, navigating through them is easy and convenient. If for example one online user is about to buy bathroom tiles, he would probably go to the category under 'home improvement' and if your related site is under that, you are most likely to have an instant visitor, thus increasing your traffic. In the online world, traffic is everything. If you get more visitors drop by your site, then that means you have a number of potential clients, thus increasing your sales.

Choosing a web directory

There are three types of web directories – free, paid and niche directories. Free web directories are, of course, the natural choice for webmasters with a tight budget. Some free web directories requires a reciprocal link and some don’t. Reciprocal links are simply links of the web directory's URL that you are required to post in your own site. It's a give and take concept. When you post your website to a web directory, you need to return the favor by posting their URL to your site as well.

The only drawback with some free directories is that they may not be properly maintained. Spam sites may find their way into these free directories because they may lack appropriate monitoring. Then again, there are free web directories that can offer as much quality links than paid directories.

If you have the budget for it, you can also opt to submit your site to paid directories. These types of websites may charge as low as $10 per year. Some popular directories, like Yahoo, can charge as high as $299 as annual fees. The rate that paid web directories charge is relative to the website's pagerank. If the web directory site you are submitting to have PR9, then prepare to shell out a big chunk of your advertising budget. A web directory with a PR3 or PR4 would normally charge low.

The third type of web directory is a niche web directory. These are web directory sites that cater to a particular group of websites. For instance, a web directory with the niche under "business" would only allow submission from business websites. Posting your websites into niche web directories would give you better hits since you have a bigger exposure to your target market.

How to submit your website

First, you need to find a good web directory site. Check the web directory and be sure it does not contain several spam sites. One way to find out if spam sites are listed is by doing a search for terms like “Viagra”, “Sex” etc… If you notice a large number of search results, then that directory is not a good one. Because in worst-case scenario, your own website may even be penalized by some search engines.

The second thing you need to do is to choose the appropriate category where you should add your website to. You would get to your target audience better if you place your website in the right category. If not, you would not get much traffic from your possible visitors.

The next thing is to write a good description of your website. These are snippets that would describe what your website has to offer. Description should be short and catchy. It is also a good idea to make sure to write a good meaningful description as many directories do not approve websites with bad descriptions.

The last thing to do, which is very important and the part that is often take for granted, is to check if your link is working! You don't want to get your website URL misspelled or anything like that, hence the whole process would be to no avail.

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You might have heard about SEO services and how web entrepreneurs are using them to market their sites. Almost every website that provides services and has products to offer requires SEO services. These sites need visitors to promote their products and to continuously improve their sales and profits. Due to these reasons, almost all website owners are now applying and working with the SEO companies to achieve that precious first page ranking. Website owners are becoming more familiar with the benefits of the SEO services to their clients.

Through search engine optimization also known as SEO services a website is enhanced and improved in order to achieve its full function and higher search engine rankings. There are several SEO services that a SEO company can provide to its clients. These services includes analyzing the client’s website, analyzing the competitor’s website, working on the improvement of the client’s website, and continuous maintenance of the website to retain its ranking in the search engines.

SEO services start when they analyze your site. This is where the SEO services providers learn every part of your site. They study its present PR rank, competitors, inbound links and most and site's content. They also find the flow of the audience going to your site. If and when these factors are correctly implemented they will lead to higher rankings and more traffic. These are the reasons why SEO services are needed, to be able to generate traffic and improve revenue and bottom line. The traffic is the life of a website. Remember, the more visitors that come and visit your site, the greater chances to convert them into a sale or a membership sign up. They can spread the information to others through social networking which can serve as a referral system.

There are several ways on how the SEO services help in increase the traffic of a website. These are through the Internet marketing strategies like the pay-per-click, link building and organic search engine optimization (SEO). The pay-per-click strategy is the process of purchasing space on the online where ads are displayed and the advertiser pays for traffic on a pay per performance. Further, the better the keywords that you use with respect to your products, the more chances that your site will be visited. For example, if your products are pieces jewelry, with the use of SEO services strategies, you can use keywords research and go for popular keywords like low priced diamonds, pure gold jewelry or even wedding rings and engagement rings in order for your site to be discovered first during the search. On one hand, if your products are related to travel, you can use keywords such as group package or cheaper seasonal rates and the like. SEO services providers would give you reasons why you need to use these well researched keywords that must be well written in the contents of the site.

What are all these SEO services strategies mean? Primarily, the more informative your site is the more and frequent the visits that you will receive from thousands and millions of online users globally. You’ll get all the help you need in optimizing your site’s contents through valuable support of the SEO services providers. What do these providers do actually? For one, to make the keywords more effective, SEO services try to find the keywords that are related to your products. You can also use the keywords that individuals frequently use when searching for your products through the search engines.

Another way on how to increase traffic in your website is with the use of link building strategy. Remember, SEO services aim at increasing your site’s traffic or visitors thus allow your site to be accessible whenever possible. SEO services determine that this strategy can either be paid link or free link. The paid links are usually associated with the membership for joining a certain directories or sites which offers linkage. The websites under these directories are usually high-ranking sites that make profit by accepting links. They allow newer sites to be linked with them but require payment in return. These sites usually have an area within their site where links are associated interchangeably.

On the other hand, other sites actually allow free links, as long as the site owners provide an exchange links to their site or they have to share the free links with other merchants as well. There are other sites that also offer free links but the exposure of the link is not usually that long compared with the paid sites. These sites are alternately paced with other sites that wish to be linked as well. This interlinking strategy is one of the best Internet Marketing promotion and strategy of the SEO services providers.

Finally, SEO services providers have this organic search engine optimization. This is the slow but sure strategy for websites. It is slow because it involves link building which is a very time consumming task. It is the most effective strategy among the three. This works by achieving a decent rank from the search engines and from that rank, you will slowly move upwards. The website is enhanced and improved by the SEO services applied for to be able to achieve a rank in the search engine. From its initial rank, it will slowly acquire traffic and will slowly increase in rank over time. This may take a long time compared with the previously mentioned strategies but it will last longer too. To invite traffic, your site must be attractive and filled with information needed by your target audience. It is important to consider the information written on it because it will help in the ranking of your site in the future.

SEO services needs to be continuous and used on an ongoing process in order to maintain the rank of your site.

It's common to hear many marketers complain that traffic exchanges don't work and they don't use them for their work at home business. While I don't deny that I have never made an extensive study on how these people came to such conclusions, I can only guess that these people do not really understand traffic exchanges enough to take advantage of a very powerful business platform. This article hopes to show some of the best approaches of many successful marketers who use traffic exchanges to generate unstoppable traffic for their home business opportunities.

What To Promote In A Traffic Exchange

Many people fail to understand that you should be promoting the traffic exchange first before promoting your work at home business. These are the people who often do not have a real marketing plan for their business and follow a short term vision of making money online - lots of it and fast. They may find some initial success, however this is short-lived as their efforts are usually unsustainable. Eventually, many will be left disappointed in their home business venture.

On the contrary, having good planning that follows a business marketing plan and tracking your results is a good, sound business practice. You can start by joining many good traffic exchanges, perhaps about 10 as a start growing to as many as 40 eventually when your business grows. Your initial strategy after joining them should be to build as many referral downlines as humanly possible. Downlines are those people who join you in the same traffic exchange. Many traffic exchanges have their own rules, but most of them have unlimited downline tiers for you.

Unfortunately, some marketers in your downline may not become your serious business partners. I would dare say if you can get a 10% good people who actively promote and build your lower tier downlines, this would be a fair result. So try to set some achievable targets like building 300 people in your downline within the next 6 months. If you focus on growing this downline, eventually you will succeed and begin to experience a massive amount of traffic visiting your site.

Use The Right Business Tools

In order to see the light of your well-conceived marketing plan or strategy, you do need to find good business tools to achieve your result. One of the best traffic generating programs that you can join is Traffic Tornado, which has 28 different traffic exchanges under its wings. This unique downline referral builder allows promoting several programs together. Besides building traffic faster, it lets you extend your marketing reach to a wider audience. Promoting these programs generates traffic from the activity of members that you introduce.

Download and use a software called Mozilla Firefox. It is a very powerful and easy to use web browser, which has the ability to open multiple sites and windows inside a single browser task. The great thing about this program is that multiple pages can be saved as a group and reopened together (your start page addresses). You'll be able to surf with 10 of your traffic exchanges at the same time. Using this method, a surfer can easily generate a thousand hit credits within an hour. I am sure this would be a real encouragement too if you are just starting a home business.

Building An Opt-in List

Traffic Exchanges can help you grow your leads and opt-in list for your business. There are two good ways to do this by introducing Splash Page and Squeeze Page.

Splash Page

Splash pages are fast loading pages designed to get better results using the traffic exchanges. Remember always that the person viewing your page is primarily concerned with generating traffic to their site and want to do so in as little time as possible. If you have a great big long page with your offer no matter how well written the odds are against you. You need to do something creative that will grab their attention quickly.

Squeeze Page

A squeeze page is used like a splash page but with an email capture form on it from an auto responder. The best way is to find a product or write an email series to give away to get them to join up to your list.

>From Leads To Customers

If you have a system to convert leads into customers, traffic exchanges can be an excellent low cost addition to your marketing portfolio. When properly used, you can generate leads at a low cost.

In conclusion, you can see how a traffic exchange, if used properly, can really help your work at home business reach greater heights. If only more people take the trouble to understand it a little better, there would be lesser internet marketers proclaiming that traffic exchanges do not work.

Traffic is the blood of all Internet Businesses. No website can survive without any visitor. In order to generate more sales and making you more money, you need quality traffic.

Aside from ensuring you have a great product to sell, you also need to massively expose your sales page to the targeted crowd. Owning your traffic is essential to your longevity on the net because if you don¡¯t own your traffic, you don¡¯t own your business.

If you already have a website and you are looking into getting more traffic and are limited by budget constrain, you may look into the following quickest and easiest ways to boost your website traffic for free.

1) Reciprocal Links

Getting relevant, solid reciprocal links to your website can help to increase your web traffic from people who click on the links. Reciprocal links also play a major role in boosting your search engine rankings.

Reciprocal links will benefit both websites from the efforts both webmasters do to enhance their sites traffic.

When one site features another sites link, they could provide one another with the traffic one site generates. The efforts are doubly beneficial because it would seem like both of you are working to generate more traffic. The more links traded with more sites the more traffic could be expected.

2) Viral Marketing

Viral marketing allows you to spread the word about your company and product without any costs or minimal costs. This is a marketing method that can be quite sneaky. You can attach your product link to video, article and submit to social networks such as my-space, you-tube, and article directories. With this method, people get infected with the creativity and entertainment of the medium that they will pass it on to many people. Viral marketing makes use of the tendency of a person to share something to find informative, entertaining or amazing.

3) SEO Optimization

Search Engines would be the most widely used Internet tool to find the sites that they need to go to or the product or information they need.

Most people that use Search Engines use only the ten top search results in the first page. Making it to the first page, more so to the top three is a barometer of a sites success in Search Engine optimization. It is essential to grab a hold of that spot or make your ranking even better.

Develop a content site and use proper keywords or keyword phrases in your site. Having the right keyword and keyword phrase is a requirement in ranking high in search engine results. You could write your own content or you could hire someone to do it for you. By using proper keywords you could also target the market that you intended to promote to.

4) Article Marketing

Write Articles and submit it to article directory can lead traffic to your site. If you sell automobile parts write press releases and articles about the parts you are promoting. Attach your sites description and services at the end of the article with your website link. The more directories you submit, the more exposure you will generate.

Articles are one of the most effective no cost real methods for generating instant free traffic.

5) Forums Cash

Join related Forums and contribute your ideas, show your expertise and credibility. Overtimes people will trust you and your site will be passed on to many people they trust. Traffic will definitely increase because they know that they can get what they need from you.

6) Offer Newsletters.

If people know what you are about and your expertise, you will find a loyal traffic that can provide you with more traffic through word-of-mouth. If you arouse the curiosity of your customers they would be pushed to help you with your traffic. Offer your visitors newsletters, build your list through opt-in subscription so that your visitors can stay with you to receive your articles and any other future promotion.

7) Offer Free EBooks or Reports.

People love free things, if you can give away valuable information in the form of eBooks or reports you can attract a flood of visitors to opt-in their names.

8) Tell-A-Friend Script

One of the easiest methods in viral marketing is using a Tell-A-Friend script. This is a simple programming script that you can attach to the programming of your website. Generally, Tell-A-Friends scripts are installed in pages where a media is placed so that a person can easily send the media to any of his friends or his family members.

There are so many quickest and easiest way to tap into hundreds of thousands of ready traffic without spending a single cent on advertising. All it takes is a bit of hard work and the desire to successfully launch a profit-earning site. The Internet is a veritable source of information, many tips and guides are offered everywhere in how to boost traffic and make your site a good profit earner.