Before you submit, make sure all your links are working - Yahoo! tests your page HTML before it includes you. Generally, have a good look at your site and remove everything that would make Yahoo! not list your site - or list it in a way that isn't as you would want it to be. Yahoo! gives a lot of information on how they review a site - see their submission help pages at http://add.yahoo.com/fast/add and http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest/faq.html. Follow them to letter and follow above instructions to letter. Once your site is listed at Yahoo! it is next to impossible to have way listing is worded changed. So make sure you get it right first time around.

To submit to Yahoo!, simply go to category where you wish to have your site listed on Yahoo! and click on Suggest link at bottom of that page.

Once you get listed, you should also sign up to have your site become a sponsored site within Yahoo! It costs $25 to $300 or more a month at time of this writing, depending on category. Sponsored sites appear in a separate, clearly demarcated listing box, located on appropriate category pages in directory at top - which means that you will get a lot more traffic - significantly higher than non-sponsored listings. To sponsor your site, simply go to directory page on Yahoo! where it is listed, then click on Sponsor link and follow directions.

We keep mentioning 'most important keyword' all along. What is this keyword or keyword phrase? This is keyword or phrase that most people use to find your site. Try to use a two word phrase. A one-word keyword is usually too general and will result in a lot of traffic that is not very interested in your site. So you will end up having a lot of people who just get back out of your site. It is better to use a two-word keyword because that makes sure you get people who are ready to spend time and money on your site. The easiest way to illustrate this is to use adult industry. If you have an adult site that specializes in live video, you may be tempted to use 'sex' as keyword that is most popular with searches in your industry. Indeed it is, but you will get people looking for free pictures, looking for medical advice, and more. A better phrase would be one that contains words 'live video' and 'sex' in it. That is kind of keyword phrase you should enter here. Tools such as Word Tracker and Goto inventory window will help you see what are most common keyword searches in your industry.

If you need help finding your important keywords and composing your title or descriptions, you may find an appropriate online marketing company to do that for you at http://www.aboutwebmasters.com or use a software package to guide you, such as PositionWeaver PRO, which also has links to keyword searching tools. Generally, even if you do get someone to write your title and description for you, make sure you review it carefully before you submit it - after all, it is your site and you only get one shot at this when it comes to Yahoo!

Can you do that? Can you describe content of your entire site in two words?

If not, you need to begin rethinking focus of your site. You might consider splitting your site into separate sites. Using same look and feel for each site, only different domains for different categories of your site. In this way, your visitors will still feel as if they are on same site, but engines will see different sites, each with their own "theme".

If you can describe focus of your site in two or three words your already well on your way to having a very themes friendly site.

The next step should be your homepage. The homepage of your site should focus on overall, two word theme of your site. The same two words you used to describe your site. These should be focus of your homepage.

All of subpages on your site, should focus on a narrower version of same theme you targeted on your homepage using an extension of same two word description of your site. If your two word description was "computer hardware", then your subpages should focus on keyphrases such as "ibm computer hardware", "toshiba computer hardware" etc.

The key is to always have same two word description as part of focus of your subpages. This keeps overall theme of site pure and focused, and easily picked up by a visiting engine.

A good example of an implementation of this would be an electronics store. A smart owner of an online electronics store would give each section of his store its own domain name. This could include a domain specifically for cell phones, another for televisions, another for stereos, etc. In doing this, he could then focus individual pages within each domain on specific types of those devices.

Let's look at an example.

Primary domain - www.daves-electronics-store.com

cell phone domain - www.daves-cell-phones.com

cell phone subpages: nokia-cell-phones.html motorola-cell-phones.html ericcson-cell-phones.html etc.

stereo domain - www.daves-stereos.com

stereo subpages: panasonic-stereos.html aiwa-stereos.html sony-stereos.html etc.

televisions domain - www.daves-televisions.com

televisions subpages: toshiba-televisions.html big-screen-televisions.html sony-televisions.html etc.

As you can see buy using above technique you can focus overall theme of each web site. The cell phone portion of site may deal with different types of cell phones on each page, but overall theme is still "cell phones" because this phrase would be found on each and every page.

When dealing with a themes based engine, focus is key. If all other things are equal, site that is most focused around specific search term, will come up on top.