Second tier directories are not quite on par with the majors. That shouldn’t deter you, though. Remember you’re not after traffic from these directories. You want the in-pointing link.
In some ways, second tier directories offer greater value than the majors.
Submission costs, for example, are quite reasonable -- between $15 and $30 will
get you in, usually within a couple of days. Because they are not as congested,
it’s easier to obtain the listing you want, higher up in the directory hierarchy (i.e.,
a listing in Health > Weight Loss is more desirable than a listing in Health >
Weight Loss > Supplements). Even though these directories are not as highly
trafficked, it will be easier for your visitors to find your site.
Bottom line recommendation?
Second tier directories offer Webmasters a cost-effective means to build their link
popularity quickly. Well worthwhile, and highly recommended!
Here are some smaller directories that are worth considering...
JoeAnt
http://www·joeant·com/
GoGuides
http://www·goguides·org
Business·com
http://www·business·com/
Gimpsy
http://www·gimpsy·com/
Blue Find
http://www·bluefind·com/
Skaffe·com
http://www·skaffe·com/
SevenSeek
http://www·sevenseek·com/
Wow Search Directory
http://www·wowdirectory·com/
Automatic Directories
You are automatically listed in the following directories when you submit to
another one, as shown here...
• AOL Search -- you are listed automatically in AOL’s directory when you submit
to Open Directory.
• MSN Search -- you are listed automatically in MSN’s directory when you
submit to LookSmart.
• Netscape Search -- you are listed automatically in Netscape’s directory when
you submit to Open Directory.
• Ask Jeeves -- you are automatically submitted to Ask Jeeves' directory when
you submit to Open Directory. It also lists its own (Teoma-generated) results
prominently.
8.4. Pay For Listing/Placement At The “Free” Search Engines
Over the last few years, the SEs have been gradually phasing out their paid
inclusion programs. Today, Yahoo! is the only major SE that maintains one.
Paid programs limit the SEs' ability to develop competitive databases from which
to draw targeted search results. Obviously when you implement such a policy,
you eliminate vast amounts of business owners who cannot justify the cost of
inclusion. This leads to inferior search results. And when search results are
poor, visitors will go elsewhere and ad revenues plummet.
Google had the foresight long ago to avoid a paid program. Over the years, it
has built the largest and most competitive search database available on the Net.
The other SEs are still trying to catch up! Most have dropped their paid
programs, and even Yahoo!, the last SE to operate such a service, actively adds
sites to its database for free.
For that reason, there is very little reason for you to pay for a Yahoo! listing.
Follow the proven C -> T -> P -> M process to build a content-rich site and
obtain a couple of quality in-pointing links. Yahoo! will be happy to add you for
free.
Why would you consider Yahoo!’s paid service? If you’ve submitted your site
for free, and still aren’t included after 2 months, you may want to submit a
single page. By doing so, you’ll get…
1) Fast inclusion into the index. You’ll often find yourself waiting up to 2
months after your site has been crawled before your site makes it into an SE
index. Paying for inclusion means you should see your site included within a
couple of days.
2) Repeated, regular spiderings. Page modification efforts are noticeable in a
matter of a couple of days -- no waiting around for weeks for a spider to re-index
your page and to display those changes in the SE’s listing results.
3) Guaranteed continuous inclusion. Search Engines are pretty mysterious
creatures. One day, your site will be sitting pretty with a top 20 ranking, and the
next day it’s gone, disappeared without a trace. Yes, it sometimes happens.
The SEs cull pages from their respective indices for no discernible reason.
Paying for your listing means it will never be dropped from the index.
Best of all, Yahoo!’s SiteMatch program will provide entry of your URLs into the
entire Yahoo! network, which includes FAST/AllTheWeb, AltaVista, About, the
unpaid listings in Overture, and most importantly, the search results delivered on
Yahoo! itself. Of course, this comes at a hefty price…
First, Yahoo! charges a non-refundable annual review fee (yes, a Yahoo! editor
will review your content to ensure it meets certain quality criteria). Plus, there is
a cost-per-click fee. Highly competitive categories (ex., real estate, professional
services, electronics, etc.) will have a cost-per-click double the others.
At this point, unless you're driving traffic to a page with a proven Conversion
Rate and established ROI, Yahoo!’s program is an expensive gamble, only to be
investigated if you’ve failed to get listed through the normal means.
We’ve noticed Yahoo! has an increased willingness to spider and add sites to its
database for free. At this point at least, there’s little point for paying for inclusion
into Yahoo!. If, however, you'd like to investigate this option further, you can do
so here...
http://www·positiontech·com/ds-overture·html
Bottom line for all Pay For Listing/Placement services? Stick to Pay-Per-Click
offerings that bring you targeted customers and yield measurable results. Kill
programs with poor results.
Time to wrap up DAY 8...
Pay-Per-Click SEs are good tools to bolster or supplement the free traffic you are
obtaining from your highly optimized Keyword-Focused Content Pages. PPCs
can bring you guaranteed, targeted and cheap traffic. Investigate how you can
best use them to promote your business after you have created a minimum of
15-20 content pages.
Directories, on the other hand, won’t drive a ton of traffic to your Web site. Sure,
you’ll get some visitors. However, their true value comes through the provision of
quality in-pointing links.
As link popularity continues to grow in importance, so too does the importance of
a couple of qualifying links. The best major directories and second tier
directories offer just such links.
If you have an immature Web site, you really should investigate a few of the
directory options presented in this chapter. You don’t need to spend a lot of
money but a couple of decent links will go a long way to keep the SEs spidering.
Before proceeding to DAY 9, please complete your DAY 8 Goal-of-the-DAY,
and take note of your Ongoing Goal...
Ongoing Goal... When your site reaches 15-20 pages, submit to directories. If
you build a good site that delivers high-value content, you’ll get into the
directories. Being listed in a directory will not generate more traffic but it will
provide a quality relevant in-pointing link.
Broaden your PPC bidding until you have placed bids for 100 keywords at the 8
biggest Pay-Per-Clicks (if your ROI justifies it).
Two of the “Big 3” down, one to go…