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The secret to obtaining excellent results via your Yahoo! submission is to choose
most appropriate category and include a carefully-crafted description that contains your main keyword phrase/s without being too verbose. For those of you offering a Yahoo! submission service to clients, be sure to charge a generous admin fee for your expertise in researching category and writing description for your client – a successful Yahoo submission can pay dividends for your client for years.
Example of a successful site description for Yahoo!:
ABC VIP Adventures - offers tailored adventure travel and vacation packages to New Zealand including day tours, exotic corporate trips, luxury travel packages, kite surfing, and extreme sports.
Example of an unsuccessful site description for Yahoo!:
ABC Travel – we are best! We are only company to contact for your vacation. Call now!
The latter does not use actual company name, plus it contains lots of hype but no keywords and few clues as to what site is about. In this case, Yahoo! editor would have to visit site submitted and come up with their own description and it’s doubtful edited description will be something submitter would be happy with.
Submitting to Open Directory
Another Directory where submission is critical is Open Directory. DMOZ is run entirely by volunteers and your site submission must be hand-reviewed by one of these volunteers before it can be considered for inclusion. DMOZ is extremely under-staffed (I know this because I’m a DMOZ editor!) and it can take 6 or more months before your submission is reviewed – you must be patient. When submitting to DMOZ, make sure you follow directory submission guidelines above and prepare to wait, wait and wait some more.
Procedure to follow for a successful DMOZ Submission:
1) Submit site
2) wait for 3 months
3) follow up email to category editor
4) wait for 3 months
5) escalation email to category editor above your category
6) wait for 3 months
7) ask for assistance in Open Directory Public Forum
8) wait for 1 month
9) escalation email to DMOZ senior staff & post to various forums seeking help
Rules of Submission
1) Do it once: Despite hype, there is NEVER a need to resubmit to a search engine or directory unless your site is dropped entirely (which is a very rare occurrence).
2) Do it properly: Be very thorough when submitting, especially to directories. Take time to research and locate most appropriate category for your site.
3) Be brief: Don’t waffle on about your site in description field. Get to point and describe your site in a short sentence or two.
4) Be accurate: Don’t try to trick potential visitors by using vague or misleading descriptions about your products or services.
5) Be relevant: There is a fine line to tread between relevance and keyword optimization when creating your site descriptions for submissions. Try not to cross it by using descriptions over-stuffed with keywords.
6) Be humble: “Best Web Site in World!!!!” is not going to convince anyone and may earn you wrath of search engine editors.
7) Be patient: Search engines and directories can take up to 6 months to index and list your site. Re-submitting won’t help things and could result in your site being shoved to bottom of review pile.
So that wraps up directory submission process. It can be time consuming, but taking a little bit of time and care with your submissions can pay dividends for your site for years to come.
Miss Part One? Find it here: How to Submit Your Site to Search Engines
Copyright © 2005 by Kalena Jordan. All rights reserved under U.S. and international law.
Article by Kalena Jordan, one of the first search engine optimization experts in Australia, who is well known and respected in the industry, particularly in the U.S. As well as running her own SEO business, Web Rank, Kalena manages Search Engine College, an online training institution offering instructor-led short courses and downloadable self-study courses in Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing subjects.
