Every online
business needs traffic, which comes with increased visibility
on the web. One great way to get noticed is to get listed
in the major directories. Links from good directories increases
your site's visibility many fold.
There are thousands of web directories on the net and
selecting the good ones to submit your site can
be a time consuming task. Also there are free directories
and paid directories. You need to submit to both types
of directories.
The following checklist is for paid directory submission
only. This checklist will help you choose the best
and worthwhile paid directories on the net.
Submission Check List:
1. Check out if the directory is indexed in major search
engines.
2. Check the robots.txt file. Make sure that search
engine bots are allowed to crawl the pages where
you intend to put your listing. Check the Meta
tags to make sure that search engine spiders are
not prevented from following links in it. A Meta tag
with noindex/nofollow will not be indexed or spidered
and links in that page are not followed by bots.
3. Check if the directory is being maintained regularly.
Visit the directory from time to time to see if
errors are getting corrected, site information
is getting updated and the like. In short, look
for positive activity on the directory.
4. Check if the listings in category pages match in
theme and content or not. Directories with tight
focus on relevant grouping of websites are useful for
visitors and tend to show up frequently in SERPs for
keyword searches.
5. Check out the age of the directory. Do a whois search
(http://www.whois.net/) to get this information.
Many new directories vanish after a few months
due to lack of maintenance and promotion. With older
directories you can at least be sure that you listing
will remain visible for a reasonable period.
6. Check if the directory consists of too many empty
categories - it is not useful for visitors and also
does not send a too good signal to the SEs about the
directory. Think twice before submitting to such directories.
7. Check if the contact information is available on
the site. Proper businesses will provide you with
some kind of contact information.
8. Check the Alexa rank of the directory - it is not
accurate, yet you can get an idea of traffic the
directory receives.Look for directories with decreasing
Alexa Rank as it indicates that the directory is
getting popular.
9. Check if the directory provides SE friendly urls.
No JavaScript link or redirection. Also watch out
for dynamic urls. Sometimes search engines find
it difficult indexing or recognizing dynamic urls
with parameters like http://www.<examplesite>.com/index.html?cat=1&p=12...
An example of SE friendly URL is http://www.hedir.com/business.html
.
10. Check whether category pages have too many outgoing
links. If your link is one of 100 links on a page, visitors
will find it difficult to locate your site.
Author
Bio:
Lakhya Phukan is the webmaster of Hedir Web Directory.
Search for some Directory Resources at hedir
or you can look for the Syndicated directory
list at hedir. |
