How can you increase your chances for acceptance in directories? There are restrictions to being accepted by a directory and if you don’t follow directory guidelines set down by the directory you are most likely not going to be accepted.  Affordable and effective website promotion methods considered today for internet business owners are the use of directory submissions.   Some of the rules for directory submissions are in fact not written in the regulations of the directory itself and there is a right way and a wrong way to go about directory submissions.

There are thousands of SEO directories available online and they all have guidelines that must be followed and you need to ensure you follow the correct steps to ensure acceptance or at least have the highest possible chance to have your submission and your website accepted.  These rules apply if you are submitting to the directory yourself or if you obtain the services of a directory submission company.

1.    Submission of Home Pages only.
Some of the SEO-friendly directories available to you will only allow acceptance of your home page and generally deep linking is not allowed from these particular directories.  There are some directories that state they will permit deep linking with an individual page URL or using a sub-folder and generally you will be accepted if you try to use deep linking.  However if it is not stated that there is deep-linking then you will most certainly find your submission is rejected.

2.    Keyword targeting and website titles.
When you are submitting your entry you are generally asked for your website title.  Usually three to five words are permitted in the website title field; if your website title itself is very long then this may mean your submissions are rejected regardless.  This title usually will be the anchor text detail that will be used to link back to your website.  This field therefore is a very important aspect in the directory submission process. Some directories will request the website title be used and others will let you use some keyword targeting as well.  Either way you still need to ensure that your title and keyword information is within the guidelines or rules of the directory submission site.

3.    Category selection is a vital factor in directory submissions.
You must ensure that you select the correct category for your directory submissions.  This point cannot be stressed enough.  If you choose an incorrect category or an unrelated category it is almost certain that your submission will be rejected.  The directories generally state in their submission rules or directory guidelines that you need to select the deepest category option available.  That means you need to choose the category that is most directly related to your business product or service and website.  The deepest category is in fact the best option for you anyway and for your website but you need to be very thoughtful when selecting the category you wish to be listed under.  Good category choice improves your acceptance rate but also is the best assistance for your website as it will allow the directory listing to provide a contextual link back to your page rather than a standard back link that may not be relevant to your business.  The contextual links back to your page are much more important for your ranking and overall business visibility than a standard back link.

4.    Free Email Addresses.
Using a free email address during the directory submission will often also mean that your submission is rejected.  Make sure that you are using the domain email address rather than a free email address option.  The directories see this almost as a non person requesting entry to the directory and can, as stated, in many cases reject your request for submission.

The above pointers should give you a background into some of the requirements you need to keep in mind when submitting to directories.  Following these simple guidelines can increase your chances of acceptance.  Other options for increased acceptance are to use the services of a directory submission service for promotion of your website.  They will be able to give you a higher acceptance rate and a much better result for the investment of time and money to create the submissions yourself.

Follow these seo tips above and you will find whether you submit to the directories yourself or you are using a directory submission service that you will have a much higher acceptance rate and the aim of course is to improve the volume of traffic to your website.  By following the directory requirements you actually have a much better result because your entries will be relevant and therefore interested parties are more likely to be relevant to your product or business service therefore increasing your opportunity for profit.

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A professional article service website will give you more than just well written articles they will also provide other tools to improve your search engine listings.  They offer further resources such as a bio, otherwise known as author’s resource or resource box.  These additional tools will almost force, however subconsciously, the readers of the selected articles to click on your web page in order to obtain further information.  This not only provides you with the required traffic to your site but also can help greatly to improve your Page Ranking.
When you understand the correct use of article services to improve search engine listings or SERPS’s as they are called (search engine result positions) to target specific keywords you are more than half way to achieving higher search engine listings.  Seeking the services of a good article ghost writer to have your articles professionally written can very quickly give your website a boost to gain higher rankings.
The Google Page Rank is rated by the amount of links back to a specified web page leading from other ranked web pages and also relating to the number of links that leave that web page.  When you choose high ranking article directories you can then use article marketing to improve your page rank as well as attracting more relevant visitors to your specific product and web pages.  Article marketing is a very popular way to generate increased website traffic.  It is also a fast way to improve the Page Rank of specific web pages.
There are key points that you need to take into consideration in your plan.  You need to ensure that your articles are written well and remain relevant and that the keywords used are relevantly placed within the article.  The article should be informative but should leave your reader wanting further information or more in depth detail so that they will continue to your site.  Your article should not be so informative that your potential visitor to your site has learned everything they need to know and does not continue through to your website.
The bio of the author or author’s resource box also requires imaginative content.  This is not only to attract the reader to click but also to ensure the link is back to the relevant target page on your web site that will be the most beneficial to you.  There are various ways to do that and this is how an article services site can assist you.
Articles should be short and to the point but with enough content to provide some useful information.  This will all depend on your article construction and the way it is written.   Sometimes it is found that when you personally know your product well and you write your own articles you more often than not will over provide information or be too technical in your descriptions and the reader will lose interest.  The purpose of the exercise is to leave the reader interested and wanting to click further on to your website.  Generally a 300 – 400 word article is adequate however some articles, providing they are of interest, can be up to 800-900 words depending on the topic.

Even one article can generate a lot of income for you and this is not something you should be concerned with spending money on.  A good writer is an excellent resource for this and generally articles are less than $15 and are often available at lower costs.  Tracking the effectiveness of the articles is the best way to determine the benefits you obtain.  The website tracking analysis should enable you to find where your visitors are coming from and from those visitors how many from each source has bought something.
You can run specific marketing campaigns using the articles over a period of time noting the dates the particular search engines have crawled your site and any changes in your listings over the period.  It is often a very difficult task to quantify the contribution of individual authors or individual articles to your Goggle Page Rank, and the SERP’s for each web page.   

The article services company can most likely submit the articles to the relevant article directories for you, and also write your bio box. The bio or resource box is very important to the entire article and is one part of the process that many authors are unable to use to their best advantage.   Some suggested tips are as follows: The main or anchor text should have a link back to a web page within your website relevant to the article topic rather than directly to the home page. This form of link is more powerful than a link directly to your home page.  You can of course include another link back to the home page itself if that is permitted.

This works more effectively than for example “For more information on xyz’s services you can visit their website at ABCDE.com”. Write as if you are writing in the third person, use your first name, be positive and promote your personality or your outlook.  The aim is to sell yourself and your website so from the start write your article with an attitude towards sales.

For example: “David is very experienced in article marketing, and has a positive attitude to the topic that he has interest in.   He is able to express almost all customer requirements in a visual way with his web page Article Services giving him a great deal of satisfaction.  He is very approachable and can be contacted at ABCDE.com if you are thinking about giving your own website a boost in the rankings.”

That is much better than “More information on David’s Article Services can be obtained from his site ABCDE.com”; the above gives you a little information on how to use article services to improve your search engine listings, as opposed to trying to do it yourself.  It could be that you are already successful at this yourself however the bio or resource boxes when written by a professional usually is a lot more valuable than when webmasters or individuals try to produce them themselves and you may be surprised at the assistance to your business you could obtain using an Article Services company.

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Using directory submission to increase the volume of traffic to your website has the effect of also increasing your search engine rankings.  As your rankings increase ultimately the traffic to your website also increases.  You can see the cycle effect the process creates and therefore you just cannot afford not to go without using directory submissions if you are interested in business improvement which surely as a business person that is your ultimate quest.  Website or online business owners as well as SEO experts are aware of the importance of directory submissions to increase traffic and ultimately sales for their businesses or their customers.  Directory submissions are one of the most cost effective SEO options available and they offer excellent opportunities for business promotion.

Here are listed the main benefits of directory submissions to your online business:

a)    Search Engine Listings.  After your site is submitted to a directory and is accepted within a few days you should see that major search engines start to list your URL as well.  The website robots are continually looking for new websites and the listing of them in directory submissions will enable them to find your website much faster when it is in a listed directory.
b)    Keywords.  The importance of accurate keywords being used in the directory submissions is important to also ensure you are more easily located in a search and therefore you receive more traffic back to your site.
c)    Back Links or one-way links.  All search engines have a high opinion of back links, more so than reciprocal links.  Directories are an excellent way to obtain value from your back links.  The search engines place high value on back links from sites that are specific to your market as well as the older and more established sites.  When you place your listings you are able to list in the categories relevant to your business product or service, and therefore the search engines can consider these links to be relevant.  The ability to choose more established and older directories also proves to the search engines that your links are from authoritative websites.
d)    Awareness.  Directory submissions are an essential tool to enable you to increase the overall awareness of your business brand.  The more branding you can give to your business ultimately gives more recognition of your business of product to your potential customers.
e)    Cost Factors. Using directory submissions as a marketing tool is one of the more cost effective and affordable options of SEO strategies you can use.   Directory Submission is a very economical way to link brand awareness and popularity with keyword targeting for your website.  There are a lot of directories which will list your site for free however there are also sites that will charge you to list with them.  The charges however are generally not unrealistic for the results achieved.

When you check further into the area of directory submission you will however see that it is a very time consuming process.  Internet marketing professionals and SEO experts will confirm that manual submissions to directories are the most effective way to complete directory submissions.  Each directory will have its own rules and requirements that must be met before submissions will be accepted.  There are submission software options that are available however generally it is found that the rejection rate when using submission software is much higher than when manual directory submissions are made.  The submission software cannot usually accurately select the appropriate categories or subcategories that you would be able to select if you would be able to manually make the submissions.  There is a much higher time factor of course involved in a manual submission as opposed to a software program.

When you have weighed up all the facts you will find that when you have made the decision to use directory submissions as part of your marketing plan it may well be worthwhile using the services of a marketing expert or a directory submission service company.  They can assist you with your marketing plan but also can give you further advice on the best directory submissions you should use and those that you should also avoid.  They will have more knowledge of the directories that are applicable to your specific business and if you request they can handle the directory submissions directly for you.

The choice of course is entirely yours, if you decide to take on the task yourself or enlist the assistance of  a professional directory submission service to do it for you, either way you should be taking advantage of directory submissions to ensure your business is growing and you are getting the spot in the market that you deserve for your product or service.  You put the best in to your business, let the tools out there enable you to reach more of your potential customers and allow your business to grow.

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Internet Professional Marketers and SEO experts are already aware that good directory submissions are a requirement for any online business owner who is interested in increasing their search engine ranking to create link popularity and increase traffic to websites. Therefore we need to understand what a directory is.

In very basic terms a directory is a list of websites that are listed and broken down into categories and subcategories. So if you want your website to be included into a directory you need to submit your site and have it approved and then you will be listed in that directory. Businesses or individuals that want to know more about any given subject will when accessing that directory be able to find your website.

Some directories will allow you to list your site in the directory for free whereas others may charge a fee to allow you to be listed on their directory. Paying for a directory listing in most cases will guarantee that your site is included in their directory and very quickly usually within 7 days. Directories that you submit to that do not charge fees can take a much longer time to accept your submission. However, prior to listing your URL you do need to have an understanding of the basic rules for directory submissions. Listed below are nine simple things that you need to consider and understand before you submit your site.

• 1. You must ensure that your webpage is fully completed. You should not start to make submissions to any directory until you are sure your site is 100%.
• 2. Make sure that you are not using any popup or popunder windows in your web pages.
• 3. Any advertisements or affiliated links should be kept to the bare minimum as sites with a lot of “fluff” or distractions on them will generally mean that the directory owners will reject the submission.
• 4. Do some research and make sure that you use well-respected and good quality directories. Using relevant directories will improve your rankings in the SERP’s. Search engines give a higher rating to inbound links from sites with relevance just as they do to relevant directories.
• 5. Every directory will have a set of rules and requirements that you must fulfill before you can submit to them. Make sure you know these rules beforehand otherwise you may find that you are wasting a lot of time trying to submit to a directory that you do not fit the requirements of.
• 6. Make sure you have all the required information that the directory will require such as providing your correct email address a relevant description, title, URL and keywords otherwise you may also have your submission rejected.
• 7. Understand the use of keywords fully for optimal recognition within the directory. Most directories will use keywords to enable the individuals that are searching to find your directory. Ensure you put the keywords in to your description and your tile.
• 8. Understand all the categories that you have available to use for placing your URL. This has an impact on giving you a higher search engine ranking as the search engine will consider your entry more relevant as it is in the appropriate category and subcategory. You must also ensure you are choosing the correct subcategories within that category for ease of location and also to ensure that your website is considered as quickly as possible for acceptance by the directory.
• 9. Time is the other important factor that you need to consider, your site may not be accepted immediately, especially if it is not a paid directory listing so don’t just go for one directory, submit to a few different directories to increase your chances of acceptance and also the speed in which your ranking may improve.

Many online businesses enjoy the process of directory submissions and find that they receive great results in a short period of time. Others do find it incredibly time consuming and due to the time involved may not feel there is benefit in the process regardless of the result. If you find that this is not something you feel capable of doing then perhaps you should consider the manual services of a directory submission company to do this for you.

A professional directory submission service will provide an effective and very efficient way to increase traffic to your website and increase your business sales. They will not only be able to do the directory submissions for you but they can assist with ideas and processes to increase your internet marketing plan. They of course will also save you a lot of time because they already have a lot of the information on hand that you would need to source if you planned to do the job yourself. They already know many applicable directories for your business and the correct format and information you should use in submissions to get the best results for your business.

Either way, directory submissions will benefit your business, whether you take the time to complete the process correctly yourself or if you enlist the services of a directory submission service.

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Although directory submissions are very effective, it is a very boring job. While a professional seo company will offer more benefits then just saving your time. Most people do not know that most directories do not give a seo-friendly link and that submitting to those directories do not help your rankings.

It is as common as announcing a business phone number to the yellow pages. To get your site launched, it is simply step one. A directory submission service knows all the best SEO friendly directories to submit to. As long you actually order from a professional seo company, they will submit your site to a list of directories they have carefully checked to guarantee that every directory will indeed give you a seo-friendly link. The investment it takes is minimal, as a directory submission service is set in the task at hand and so will process it fast and efficient.

Submitting your website to 500 directories does not automatically mean that you will receive 500 links. The service that submits your site will ensure that your site details are submitted properly and effectively but as to whether your link is accepted by every directory they submit to is depends on the quality the website. Each editor has their own rules for approving sites and if you get that link it is entirely their choice.

Once you have paid for the service, the submissions should commence a couple of days after and be finished after 4-6 working days from the date of payment. The directories have many strict rules, so in all probability the directory submission service will have to edit the information you provided to increase your approval ratio. And ask yourself, would you put your trust in a doctor who do not have any other patients in the waiting room? It takes a few days before the directory submission service can begin the actual submissions. As mentioned before, there is more to it than just passing on the work itself. A link submission service also understands the directories from experience and so will submit the information very accurately. Obviously the quality of the site is important for approval, but if the site is submitted to the wrong category, most directory owners will remove your submissions without even bothering with the website. So a directory submission service can and has to pay attention to all of these details to ensure that the submissions are done properly.

Directory submissions is just 1 of the recognised link building strategies and so most submissions services also offer other tactics. For example: Social bookmarking is the practice of saving website pages to a public social media site and tagging them with keywords. Link popularity is improved by producing lasting one-way back links and are certain to send direct traffic to your website.

As everything in life has advantages and disadvantages, so does each different link building tactics, which is why it is so important to use all of them. The best link building strategy is a mix of all the options, so they level each other out. There is more to it than only getting links however. Best is to have a seo-expert taking care for your site as a whole and he will then order extra packages from a professional submissions company.

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Finally google has been doing some gardening and has cut out most of the weed. About time!

Now, not to worry, big G didn’t devaluated the directories all together. Google simply have some more and better algorithms in place to determine whether or not the directory owners are taking it seriously.

In other words; most directories are still there, it just the crap-, the fake- and the spam-directories that have been filtered out and lost all their pages from the google index and of course their PR just as well. No real loss …

Still, it’s a good opportunity to upgrade the way we process your directory submissions just as well. The best way to do so is to use more different descriptions. So from now on we’ll use 5 totally different-unique descriptions, instead of 3 more or less different descriptions.

For our most popular package; the 250 homepage + 5×50 deep-link = 500 manual directory submissions package, this means that we’ll prepare 30 totally different-unique descriptions.

Especially for the deep-links it makes a significant difference; we combine 5 different titles and 5 different descriptions, which gives 25 variations. So, each deep-link you get will be much more unique. This does gives more link-love!

We could do even more, but writing these descriptions takes times of course, and all those variations also slows down the submission process, so we already have to raise the prices. Still, I’m only doing this as I believe that the results will be much higher than the price increase, so you do get more bang for your buck.

250 homepage + 5×50 deep-links = 500 directory submissions :: $150
30 titles and 30 unique descriptions!!

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In the post 5 ways to get indexed by the search engines, I mention manual directory submission. When you submit to a directory and the editor approves your website, they will link to your site. Through these links, Google is able to find you and can then index your site in their search engine result pages (SERPs). What is more, Google’s rankings are for a large part based on the number and quality of the links that point to your site. The more links and the better links pointing to your site, the higher the rankings will be.

Directory links are not the best quality links that you can get. However, there are thousands of directories and if you add up all the little bits; it will be enough to influence the rankings. It all depends on the competition as well. Do not expect to get a #1 ranking under ‘make money online’ with a few directory submissions. It takes more than that. But for not-very-competitive keywords, directory links can make a difference.

If you want to know which kinds of links to your site are best, a few high quality ones, or a couple of hundred directory links, the answer is: You need them all, if you want to achieve the top rankings. It is a combination of quality and quantity.

Submitting the details of your website into hundreds of directories is a pain. First, you have to find the directories. Then check whether the directories to give genuine links, without ‘no follow’, java script, etc. And then manually submit your information. All together you good spend a lot of precious hours (or days) to do enough submissions to make a difference.

Luckily, there is such a thing as outsourcing. You can outsource this time consuming job and spend your own time working on your website or sales. If you do a quick search for “manual directory submission services”, you will find numerous services offering to do directory submissions for you.

Which one of these companies should you outsource your submissions to? It is hard to tell when you only see the website. There are so many companies out there that are happy to take your money, but will not deliver a quality service. A quality service will:

• - Check directories thoroughly before submitting to it. This will make sure that there is not time (read: money) wasted on submissions to directories that give only ‘no follow’ links, java script links, or indirect links. Or directories that accept only paid links. Or local directories; a website selling only in Europe will not be accepted in a “Pittsburgh directory”.
• - Submit manually. Some services use programs as DigiXmas to submit your information. It is proven that approval rates of these submissions is much lower (more than 60% lower) than when submitted manually.
• - Choose an appropriate category in each directory. When submitting manually, you can take time to review the categories available. Each directory has its own way of categorizing websites and the most appropriate category should be chosen with each directory. Directories that do not have a suitable category available for your website (such as non-related niche directories or local directories) should not be used at all.
• - Recommend on the choice of data to be submitted. A good service does not simply take the data that you have offered, but checks your data and does a recommendation to make improvements. You think that you have written a nice description of your website that will surely make visitors click on your link, but will it be approved by the directories? A good service understands these directories and the human editors that decide whether a submission should be approved or not. Besides that, directories state guidelines for their submissions that should be closely followed in order to pass the spam filter. It are usually little things as words as ‘we offer’ and ‘you’ and ‘best’,’great’,’discount’, etc. It might look nice in your description, but will not be approved, which means that you do not get any link and have wasted you money on the submissions. A good service prevents this by helping you to get the best approval rates possible.
• - Does not make promises on approval rates. Whether a submission is approved or not is still always up to each individual human editor of the directories. A good service will do all to submit correctly, but did not put your website together, and does not control the editors. Therefore, a good service will never make promises on approval rates.
• - Does not have a very detailed report of all the pages of the directories. When submitting to a directory it takes somewhere between 24 hours and six months before the directory reviews it. Then there are categories that have multiple pages in a directory and you would not know on which page your link might or might not appear. If you get a full report from your service with the exact pages on which your links will appear, you can believe that the submissions are done with an automated system, or semi-automated submissions program as DigiXmas.

Ask questions before you choose your manual directory submissions service. Directory submissions are really the lowest step of SEO and may not seem utterly important, but if a company can’t even get that part right, then don’t waste your money on it.

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SEO starts with keywords.

Search engine users enter the words into a search engine in order to find the information they want. Do you know which words people type in and how to choose the right words for your website?

The most obvious thing to find out about keywords are how often is it searched for. Which one of the three persons below will get most search traffic, do you think?

These images were found in the WordTracker Keyword Reseach Guide.

It is clear that you need to use the same words that your customers use, rather than the correct industry terms. To find out which words that your customers use, you can use tools as WordTracker or the Google Keywords Tool.

However, that is not all that you will want to learn about the keywords. You also need to find out the competition on that keyword. For some keywords the competition is so strong that it is nearly impossible to achieve some rankings for those words.

And then you have to keep in mind conversions. What do you want your visitors to do? Sign up for something? Buy a product? Just enjoy free information? The different type of visitors use different keywords when finding your site. If your goal is to sell a product, you are not getting much out of visitors that only want to enjoy free information.

The right keywords do not only attract lots of search engine traffic, but also the right traffic.

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The internet is like a large library, with information on anything that you can think of. It is also called the information superhighway. Most people using the net are on it for the information. Therefore the most important thing on any website is the content!

In general the success of a site will depend on the type and usefulness of the content. You cannot force a visitor to like content that isn’t interesting, useful or unique. The most successful sites are the ones visited by people over and over again. This only happens when the site constantly adds more and new content, whether it are tutorials, newsflashes, sport results or anything interesting.

What about all those online shops? Well, the shops that are only geared towards selling should not expect to be very successful in the search engines and will have to be prepared to use other marketing and advertizing techniques.

The characteristics of good content are:

• It is appealing to the target audience. Know who you are writing for and adjust the content to be attractive for your visitors.
• It is original and says something unique. A lot of information on the Internet is repeated over and over. But you will see that the most successful websites have something new to say.
• It should be interesting and informative. Some information can be found elsewhere on the web, but still people will come to your site because they like your style, your humor. Give it a personal touch.
• It should be easy to understand. The Internet is available to all types of people and your site should be readable by people outside the industry.

Is content writing not your greatest skill? There are various places where you can get a little help.
You can have a look around at the hundreds of article directories where you can get some content for free. All you need to remember is to add the short bio of the original writer.

You can also hire a copywriter, full-time for a large site or freelance for smaller sites. There are also companies providing content writing services. All you need to do is make a specific order with the keywords, length, perhaps a title or a few hints on the topic and they will create it for you.

Good content will bring visitors to your site, but regularly updated content will bring returning visitors to your site. These returning visitors are more likely to explore the rest of your site and find the products or services that you are selling. This means in short: Regularly updated content will bring in more revenues from you site. And that is why content is king.

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It is time to talk about the concept of social media optimization. Social networking is all about joining communities online, which will give you and your website a wide exposure. Top Social Bookmarking websites such as Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Furl, Reddit, and Technorati present a way to save your favorite webpages and media online, and share it with others. This is a nice way to promote your own website or products as well. Sites as MySpace and Squidoo allow users to create a page about yourself and share your information, which can bring lots of quality targeted traffic to your website.

Adding your website to these social bookmarking sites is really easy. Most offer a toolbar or button. With a single click you can be listed. For the most part, the popularity will be based on the public. You cannot force a person to like something that isn’t interesting or unique. But there are a few things that you could do to help your entry and draw traffic.

• Create eye-catching headlines
• Write a meaningful description
• Content is king so your content should be fresh and meaningful
• Make it easy for others to vote / bookmark your site by adding buttons to your website
• Allow comments and feedback
• Make them public
• Network with other users

The key to Social Networking is easy: The simple idea is to reach out to as many people as possible in order to make your website popular. If you have great content and simply share it with as many people as you can, it will see success.

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