Article And Directory Submissions

Step 8 - Article and Directory Submissions

Search engines, Like Google, Yahoo! and MSN recognize links from top Internet directories. Passing the review process by one of the editors of the top directories signals a stamp of approval and vouches for the site's quality.

Getting your site listed in the DMOZ (Open Directory) and the Yahoo! directory is a sure way to gain trust and link popularity.

How difficult is it to get a listed?

The easier to get listed in the directory the more lower ranking sites the directory will likely contain. This can affect the link power you can gain from getting listed. Getting listed in the DMOZ or Yahoo! directory is tougher for a good reason. The editors are selective about the sites they let into their directory. The higher the barrier to enter a directory, the more valuable your link will become.

What types of sites are listed in the directory? You can get a sense of the sites listed in a directory by visiting MSN.com and entering the command: "linkfromdomain:directory.com." If you see a lot of sites in the search results you would not want to be associated with, don't submit your listing.

What is the age of the directory? The older the directory the better. Newer directories have a very low trust factor on the search engines, and your link on the directory pages may not be given any substantial link reputation.

What is the Google PageRank of the directory? The higher the better obviously, but don't stop at the home page. Look deep in the category pages if the Google PageRank is distributed to all the internal category pages as well.

Are you able to specify your own keywords in the link anchor text? This is probably one of the most important factors in directory submissions. If you can't specify your own anchor text to use in the directory link you may not gain as much keyword relevance from the link.

Do the Title tags of the category pages where your link is placed match closely your websites theme? Take a look at the Title tag of the page where you are considering submitting your site, does the Title contain at least a few of your main target keywords, if not, look elsewhere or suggest a new category.

How many unique inbound links can be found to the directory? The higher number of unique links pointing to the directory the better and the higher your chance of getting a decent amount link reputation out of your submission.

Are you able to add a description to your link? A great description of your site can substantially increase the click through rate of your link in the directory, so aim for a persuasive description emphasizing a few benefits.

Are you able to submit multiple links under one listing? It's a big plus to get few more links from the same directory with different link anchor text, but it's not an absolute necessity.

Are there more than 50 links on a category page? Too many links on a single page dilutes the effectiveness of your own link, so check carefully and demand another page if the directory tries to put your link on a page with too many links.

Can you enhance your listing by purchasing category sponsorship? It's nice to sometimes have some control over where your link is placed. With a feature listing you can jump to the top of your selected category.

Directory submission preparations

When submitting your link to any directory, you will be asked for some basic information about your site. As a minimum most directories require the following Directory Submission information about your site:

URL — This may be your home page URL, but some directories also allow you to submit your internal pages for deep linking.

Title — This will be the anchor text of the link to your site so choose your keywords carefully and try to minimize the use of stopwords like "in, the, with, etc."

Description — This will be the description below your link. It's important to have some of the keywords from the title of your link present here.

Keywords — This should match closely the META keyword tag content of your home page. Don't use keywords here that are not used on your site.

Category — You will most likely not find an exact category to submit your site to, and the categories vary from directory to directory. In these cases, try to enter a search phrase that matches your website's keyword focus into the directory's search box. In some cases your competitors are already listed in the directory, and you may want to look up the category they are listed in to help you decide on the most appropriate category.

Prepare the content of these submission fields in a text file for easy copy and pasting when it comes time to submit your link to the directories. You should use the same information for the directory submission in as many as 5–6 directories, but after that use different anchor text targeting different URLs for the next 5–6 submissions. Some directories may not allow you to change the URL pointing to your internal pages, but you should try in any case.

Article submissions

Is a win-win deal for you and the article publishers as well. The article publishing directories need your content for their members to read so they can monetize your articles with advertising space surrounding your articles, and you also gain some direct traffic, but most importantly you increase your site's link popularity. In some cases the search engines may even rank the article at the top of the search results or at least in the top 10 if enough people find it useful. They may even point links to your article.

A well written article is not an infomercial for your website

The writing style for articles is much different from writing website content. The articles that get the most views on e-zine sites are those that help the reader solve problems and provide answers to their questions. Striking the right cord with your readers will make or break your articles.

You have to ensure your article stays on topic without ever talking about your product or services directly. It's not an easy task, but if you want your articles to be approved by the e-zine editors you have to follow their rules.

The structure of your articles

Article writing is not magic, but there are some rules you have to follow to have great success with them, here are the most important ones:

Article Title should be a maximum 110 characters including all spaces and hyphens, which is about 12 words or less. Make the title catchy, but at the same time think of incorporating your keywords into them. This will become the title of the actual page as well where your article is published.

Abstract or Summary Description can be a maximum of about 500 characters. There are no hard rules on how many words the abstract should contain, but about 60–70 words should be more than enough. Make the abstract an enticing intro to your article that hooks the publisher and spurs them to read on.

Keywords should be a collection of words that appears in your articles the most frequently. The formatting of the keywords is very similar to the META keywords on your web pages, which are comma separated.

Article Body should be about 600-800 words long, but it depends a great deal on the publishers' requirements. Some publishers want in depth articles of over 2,000 words. You have to experiment with the most suitable article length for your topics, but don't try to box yourself into a specific rule for article length.

Your article should be written with no HTML formatting as most article submission sites may not accept HTML formatted articles. If you have written your articles in Microsoft Word, convert them to plain text prior to submission.

Include your main keywords in your articles similar to the way we have discussed in the Page Optimization lesson.

No advertorials, or blatant self promotion allowed in the article body.

No links in the article body to your own site or affiliate sites, but text links that are not formatted as "live" links may be allowed to resource sites in the body.

The Resource Box should contain about 30–40 words. This is where you can talk about yourself and your business preferably in the third person. Provide no more than 2 live links to your site, at least one of them should be formatted with your website address as the anchor text, in case the publisher doesn't allow "live links.” A live link is a clickable link and not simply text.

As you can see article writing is not magical, but it must have the right focus while staying clear of promotional language.

Submitting your articles

The hardest, and most time consuming part of article submission is the initial set up of the logins and the actual e-zine directory site selection. Be prepared to spend a minimum of two hours on submitting to about a dozen directories and that's with the use of RoboForm, which helps us automatically fill article submission forms with our article content, resource box, and keywords.

Conclusion

Directory and article submission are still very effective means of getting new and well established sites promoted. It should be in every web master's web promotional arsenal. However, directory submissions are very tricky as new directories are popping up almost daily and deciding which ones are worthy of your submission dollars is a real challenge. Links from new directories are scrutinized by the search engines and heavily discounted, so submitting to well established older directories is the way to go.

Previous: Step 7 - Getting Links For Your Website

Next: Step 9 - Link Exchanges and Paid Links