How To Submit The Website To Directories?
By now you’ve figured out that directories work differently from search engines. You must complete the submission process to have your site included in most directories. But even when you’re submit- ting information about your site, there’s an art to doing it.
How you list your site can mean the difference between the site being included in the directory or not. Before you even begin to create your listing, it’s usually a good idea to navigate through the directory that you’re submitting to. Look at other listings and make note of what works in them.
Keywords are of little importance when you’re creating your directory listing. Instead, what will make the difference is the content on your web site. So if you’re faced with listing in a directory that’s strict about reviewing sites before they are listed, make sure you have fresh content on your site. And it’s also a good practice to keep that content fresh by updating it regularly.
Links can also be important when your site is being reviewed for inclusion in a directory, so be sure you keep your links updated. Broken links can be detrimental to your site, and links that lead to unrelated pages won’t reflect well either.
Other elements of your listing that editors evaluate for include:
■Appropriate categorization
■ Accurate titles and descriptions
■Title and descriptions relevant to the subject of the web site
■Domain names that match site titles
■Secure ordering capabilities on e-commerce sites
■Contact information that’s easily accessible
■Links to privacy policies, return policies, and product or service guarantees
■Working and appropriate links to other sites and resources
■Images that display properly in the most common browser formats.
■JavaScript that’s free of errors
In addition to these requirements, most directories have a long list of criteria that are reviewed before a site is actually added to the directory. That’s why it can sometimes take weeks or months for site to be listed. Depending on the volume of submissions to the directory, it can be a slow process for editors to review each web site.
When you’re ready to submit your web site to a directory, take the time to read completely the direc- tions provided by the directory. If you don’t follow these directions closely, it’s far more likely that your site will be rejected from the listings. One other submission guideline to remember is to submit only your site’s main page. Because directories include sites that have been reviewed, they usually list the whole site as a single entity, rather than listing each page separately, as search engines do.
One of the most well-known directories on the Internet is the Open Directory Project (ODP) that’s managed by dmoz.org. This general directory is edited by a team of volunteers, and it’s represen- tative of the various types of directories that are available for you to list your site with. So although there might be some slight differences, the directions for listing your site with ODP are very similar to those you would find when listing with other directories.
To list your web site in the ODP directory, take these steps:
It seems like a simple enough process to suggest your site for inclusion in a directory, and for the most part it is. What’s difficult is adding your site to all the directories that are appropriate for it. This can be time-consuming, so plan to spend consistent time at it each day until you’ve submitted to all of the sites you’ve selected.
Once the submission process is finished, that time can be used to ensure that your sites are updated to reflect any changes you’ve made. Changes for which you may want to send an update to a direc- tory include:
■Changes to the site’s URL
■ Correction of grammatical or spelling errors in the title or description of your site
■Changes to the title or description of your site if the scope of the site changes
■Suggestions for a new category if the scope of your site changes