Submitting your website to the directories

Part of the overall process of submitting one's website to the search engines is getting your site listed in the top directories. Directories are different from standard search engines in that a search engine will query a database of indexed websites before it produces results and a directory is a database of websites that have been arranged by subject. Directories do indeed have search functions but the websites are still listed in specific categories of which one may search by drilling through the various subjects the directory offers.

Therefore, the submission process to a directory differs from that of submitting to regular crawler based search engines. With a regular search engine, one will submit their home page URL and then crawler will visit that site as well as follow other links it finds from the home page, forming its own title and description of each page. A directory does not work this way. They do not crawl your website and they are not able to decipher the content of the site. Rather one will select the most appropriate category related to the subject matter of the site and then submit, suggesting a title, description and any other information the directory may require. This is why it is very important to submit correctly the first time. Not only will if affect the way the site will appear when people are searching but it is often times difficult to get it changed at a later date.

The format for submitting will work with most directories but we will also look at some specific requirements of directories as well. While there are many directories on the Internet, we will only be exploring the top ones here which are Yahoo! ( www.yahoo.com ), Looksmart ( www.looksmart.com ), The Open Directory ( www.dmoz.org ), GoGuides.org ( www.goguides.org ), JoeAnt ( www.joeant.com ), Hotrate ( www.hotrate.com ), Wherewithal/Xoron ( www.xoron.com ) and Zeal ( www.zeal.com ). First let us look at how to properly submit in general and then look at some specific requirement at each directory listed above.

Now before we begin, it will be assumed that you have already optimized your site for good positioning on the crawler-based engines. This will help us in category selection as well as what title and description to use when submitting. If you have not yet optimized your website, you'll need to do so.

The first step is to select the most appropriate category. For an example, we will use a site that we own and operate called "Arizona Builders' Zone" ( www.builderszone.com ). To select a category, you will first need to know which keywords or phrases (combination of keywords) are most important or relevant to your business. For our example site, the most important phrases that we want to target are as follows:

"Arizona builders"
"Arizona construction"
"Arizona contractors"

Sure we can target many others, but these are the most important in regards to this site. Also keep in mind that with a directory you are limited to having one page (usually your home page) included. There are rare cases where a directory will include other pages of your site in different categories but this does not happen often. It is also important to understand that in the search engine optimization (SEO) process, one can really only effectively promote two to three keyword phrases at the most for each page of the website.

To select a category, simply go to the directory you want to submit to and conduct a search using your most important keywords or phrases. You will then see one or more categories displayed along with in some cases actual websites that are listed in those categories. If more than one category is listed, you can explore each one and view the websites that are listed there. If you have competitors listed there, then you most likely want to be listed as well. The bottom line is to submit to the category that is best related to your business.

Once you locate a category, log it somewhere. This is so you can go back at a later date and see if your site was listed or not. With some directories you will receive an email response on whether your site was listed or not providing that you supply a valid email address when submitting. With others, you will have to manually check to see if your site is listed which is why it is a good practice to make a note of which directories you submitted to as well as to which categories.