Website Marketing - Directories

Website Directories

Of course you want the search engines to find your website. You can submit your website to the search engines which simply invites the search bots to visit and crawl your site. Search engines are automated with little human interface. Theoretically the bots are constantly crawling the Internet and will eventually find every website. But who can wait? So submit your "invitation to crawl" to search engines.

Web directories are a different animal. They will never find you because they will never look for you. You need find them, knock on their door and sign their guest book. They will eventually read your entry in their guest book and might list you in their directory. There are both paid and free directories and many do both. You pay to get listed faster and more prominently. In most cases a real live human will review your entry before they list it. It is not near as automated as the search engines. Some say that the human element ensures that the listings are more relevant.

A directory listing does something important that the search engines do not - the directory listing is a permanent (subject to delisting) link to your site. And remember the search engines like your site if there are a lot of incoming links.

So for that reason you should submit your site to the search engines and list it in the directories.

Where can you find directories?

DMOZ
The Open Directory Project seems to be the best directory in which to list and it is free so that is the first directory in which to list. Plus many other directories use the results from DMOZ - including the Google Directory. You just need to look through the directory to find the best category for your site. Invest a little time to get this one right. It is worth the effort.

Yahoo Directory
Yahoo was originally a directory before Google convinced them to get in the search engine business. Then Yahoo bought Overture to have a search engine. The Yahoo directory costs $299 a year to be listed. Perhaps at one time it was worth it - today I don't think so. I'm sure that more people search on the Yahoo search engine than the Yahoo Directory.

There seem to be thousands of directories. I believe it that is worth while being listed in some of them. I suggest that getting your website listed in the first half dozen directories is a primary priority. After that - add your website to directory listings over time when you have the time.

Here is a helpful resource to find more directories:

SEO Company
This company is in the business of SEO and they have compiled a comprehensive list of hundreds of directories including helpful information such as directory page rank.

George Torok

Power Marketing

Marketing Speaker