Submit your website to the major directories

Step 1: Get listed in the Directories

What's a Directory?
A directory is a human edited catalog of websites that web surfers can browse through to find what they are looking for. Generally there are several main categories, and each category has several sub-categories that you can enter, followed by more sub-categories, and so on. The most commonly used web directory is Yahoo. According to some reports Yahoo receives over 12 million visitors each day. Here are some of the differences between a human-edited directory and a robot-based search engine:

Directory	Search Engine
Edited by a human reviewer Meta tags are not considered HTML code not as important Difficult to change once listed Most allow paid submission Quality of site very important	Crawled by a robot 'spider' Meta and title tags are considered HTML code very important Easier to change listings Few allow paid submission Quality of site not as important

Submit to the directories first
Your first step will be to submit your site to the human-edited web directories mentioned above. If you already have a website then you can proceed to the next step and submit your site to Yahoo! If you don't have a website yet, or if you have some extra time you might consider designing a new site just for listing in the directories and search engines. Here's why:

Keyword-rich names increase your ranking!
When people search for things on the Internet they are not going to type in your company name (unless you happen to be Pepsi or Wal-Mart). When people are looking for blue widgets they don't look for 'Joe's Factory'. They type in 'blue widgets'. This is why you may wish to create a site specifically for your keywords. The site's name should include your most popular keyword phrase. For example - if you are selling blue widgets a good name might be 'Blue Widgets Company'. If you choose the wrong keyword phrases then no one will be able to find your site. A helpful tool for choosing keyword phrases is provided by WordTracker. They will help you to generate a custom list of popular keyword phrases that people use when searching for sites like yours. Find the best keywords for your business.

Other helpful tips:
You may wish to register a keyword-rich domain name, preferably that matches the title of your site and company. Search engines like domain names with keywords separated by hyphens. Thus the domain name you would register for our widget company would be: blue-widgets-company.com.

Now that you have chosen a keyword-rich company name and domain name go ahead and design a site to market your product or service. Once this is done you can move on to the next step, submitting your site to Yahoo!

Next: Submitting to Yahoo!