Submitting your site to the Open Web Directory: some dos and don'tsWritten by Donald Nelson
One of most important steps in any site's publicity campaign is submission to Open Web Directory (http://www.dmoz.org) as this directory provides search results for many of most important search engines and online portals. This directory is not a robot driven spider, but a human edited directory and you must observe a few important points if your submission is to be successful.1.Make sure that your site has original content. If you are only publishing a collection of affiliate links or if your site is a clone of other sites that are plentiful on web, then your submission is likely to be rejected. If you are dealing with affiliate products you can of course add content, such as product reviews or additional information and thus show editors that your site has something original to offer. 2. Check your site for spelling errors and in general, make sure that your site looks good. Though editors are looking for original content, they are only human and will be annoyed by errors and by a clumsily built site. It is my experience that professionally designed sites, with good content, always make it into directory eventually (more on time factor later). 3. Be sure to put your contact information on web site. An e-mail address is not enough. I spoke to one editor and he told me that if he doesn't see a physical address or telephone number then entrants in his category "are toast." Especially if you are selling something, you need to build credibility with your customers, and in this case, with Open Directory editors, by giving proper contact information. 4. Choose right category for your submission. When you submit a URL to a robotic search engine there is not much to think about, but whenever you submit to a directory an important part of that submission is choosing a proper category. Go online and see where sites similar to yours have been placed in directory. When you find category that you think is best, then press add URL link. In some categories editors put a note mentioning restrictions for that category. Please heed these notes carefully and don't submit to this category if your site doesn't meet criteria.
| | Generating Website Traffic with Sub-domainsWritten by Sarah Coles
Sub-domains are websites that are located within a directory of your main site and have their own domain name. Because they use same resources as main website, they are normally much cheaper than getting another hosting account. Their low cost and flexibility make sub-domains a great device for directing traffic to your site without breaking bank.*Sub-domains as Portal Sites* One of best uses of sub-domains is portal websites. Portal websites are sites that link to your main website and have a similar theme. Basically, they provide another portal, or doorway, for visitors and search engines to get to your main website. Since creating content for a website takes time, often webmasters simply modify existing text of main site and reuse it on portal site. It is important that content is not exactly same and portals do not just redirect to main site. Otherwise, search engines may not index them. *More Portals, More Visitors* Portal websites can be submitted to search engines just like your main site. If your website is doing alright in search engines, then imagine having five more websites out there for spiders to find. Five more listings means that Web surfers have five times as many ways to find your network of websites. *Search Engines and Links* More and more search engine algorithms take into consideration number and ranking of sites that link to you. By linking your sub-domains to your main site and to each other, ranking of all of your sites is improved.
|
