Now for what ever reason you are here reading this article, there is a good chance that you are an owner of a website that you want to see prosper. And we all know that the only way that you will see that happen , is if you have got a good flow of traffic. Your next question will be where and how do you go about doing this.
The first thing I would suggest is to submit your site to as many directories as you can that are presently online. These online directories are very similar to telephone directories like yellow pages for example.: The directories will be all sectioned of in different categories, so make sure you choose the relevant category for your website. You will also find nine times out of ten that you will be able to submit to a sub-category that is within a major category. When you put in your submission, you can suggest for example "Health" as your major category, "Alternative Medicine" as your sub-category, and "Aromatherapy" as a additional sub-category.
Most of the leading online directories like MSN Small Business, Yahoo!, and the DMOZ directory are usually not free, unlike most search engines. I do believe that, you can submit for free to the Yahoo! Directory (http://dir.Yahoo.Com), but there is no agreement on how quickly your website will be reviewed for listing. If you need your site reviewed quicker, you can pay Yahoo! $299 US for "expedited" service and they will assess your site within seven days. But please don’t forget that in most cases there will be an annual fee for this, and you can not be 100 percent sure that your website will stay listed for years to come.
You will find that the MSN service is around $50,and it definitely functions more like a search engine submit service. Their submission service includes inclusion in their own small business directory. DMOZ, meanwhile is a free service that is run by volunteers so you will never be quite sure how long it will take to have your website included. In all honesty I would suggest that you submit to DMOZ and pay for the other two , for the best results.
Now this is the burning question do you ever need to spend your money? Can't you just optimize your site for the search engines? You can, but not everyone goes to a search engine for what they are looking for. For example, if someone is searching for tropical fish food, they will most likely not use a search engine, and most likely to go to one of the offline directories and look at the listings, much like someone would use their yellow pages in their phone book. Your investment in gaining inclusion in the online directories will pay off for you in a multitude of ways.
1. You will build up traffic to your site. Your site will be incorporated in the online directories, as well as the search engines, and this will help you gain traffic as people search directory listings and hit upon your website.
2. You will boost the number of back links to your site. If the directory pages are listed in search engines, the link they provide for your site will be listed in the search engines. This benefits you by creating more ways for people to find your site. Ultimately, this will provide more traffic for you.
3. Submitting to directories is a quick way to gain links. Optimizing your site for the search engines is very challenging and time-consuming. It can take a lot of time to discover how to write for the search engines. In the meantime, any links you can get will help you with the search engines, and submitting to directories will get you links.
4. When submitting to directories is relatively inexpensive, and a first-class investment. As confirmed earlier, you can submit to Yahoo! And MSN for less than $350. DMOZ is free. If you run a search for online directories, you will discover many more where you may possibly submit inexpensively, or even for free.
To the point,, submitting to online directories is one of the finest ways for you to build traffic to your website. In the end, you need traffic to continue to exist online. So waste not another moment and get that traffic flowing to your website.
