Thousands Of Visitors From Web Directories

How to Get 100,000 Visitors or More from Yahoo?

How would you like to reap the benefits of getting listed in the largest and most popular searchable directory on the net?

At last count, Yahoo receives over 180 million visitors a month.

Can you imagine the kind of traffic you'll receive by getting just a small percentage of Yahoo's traffic?

For many, getting listed in Yahoo is like winning the lottery: millions enter, but only a few are accepted.

However, by following the 7 simple steps listed below you'll be able to :

o jump past the millions of websites vying for a listing o get your site listed o receive more targeted visitors o and ultimately earn more money.

Here's how to get your site listed in Yahoo:

1. Focus on a GOOD Keyword

Understanding which keywords people are actively searching can mean the difference between your site getting 50 visitors a day or 1000 visitors a day. So, you'll need to target keywords that people are actively searching for to get any meaningful source of traffic.

Here are 3 ways to Discover Popular Keywords:

- Wordspot - (http://www.wordspot.com)
- Goto Search Term Suggestion Tool (http://inventory.go2.com/inventory/Search_Suggestion.jhtml)
- Good Keywords - (http://www.goodkeywords.com)

2. Set Up an New Domain

It's a good idea to create an entirely new domain using the Keyword you came up with in Step 1.

Sure, it may involve an upfront cost:

- $15 / year for a domain name + year worth of hosting (Find this Amazing price at (http://www.doteasy.com))
- $199 for an Express Submission.
- Total Cost = $214 dollars

However, just imagine how many visitors you can bring with a Yahoo listing. For instance, let's say you can bring 500 visitors a day (a conservative estimate). This comes out to about 182,500 visitors in a year.

A total cost of $214.40 for 182,500 adds up to less than 1/10 a penny a visitor. Plus, if you submit this new site to the various search engines, you will gain even more visitors. You won't find a better bargain out there.

3. Create Unique Content

Setting up a new domain is not enough for getting into Yahoo. To get into Yahoo, you'll need to present unique content for the Yahoo editors. Remember, each site that's submitted to Yahoo is reviewed by live humans.

So how do you create unique content for the Yahoo reviewers?

One way to do this is to find gaps in Yahoo's listings, and provide the information to fill in those gaps.

Simply search Yahoo's category listing in the subject area you plan on submitting to and finding an area that is lacking content. Then, your job is to simply create the content to fill in the gaps for them.

Don't worry, you don't have to create a massive 500 pg. website. 7-10 pages of unique content (including links to other sources) should be more than adequate to get you listed.

4. Title of Your Site Should Be On Your Actual Website.

In most cases, the yahoo reviewers will use your company name as the title of your listing. So if you have the ability to do so, you might want to consider this in choosing your business name. When deciding on your business name, be sure to include your most important keyword (Step 1 above) in it.

If you already have a business name, you might want to fill out another "Doing Business As" form with your local courthouse and create another assumed name for your business.

5. Create a Very Brief Description

Try and keep your description text to 12 words or less of advertising and hype free text. However, be sure to include your important keyword (Step 1) into the description.

6. Choose a Specific Category and Secondary Category

Yahoo distinguishes sites as either commercial or non- commercial sites. If your site is selling anything at all than your site belongs in the Business and Economy section of Yahoo.

Try and be as specific as possible when trying to submit your site into Yahoo's first and secondary categories. This will help target your visitors and limit the amount of competition your site will have.

7. Implement a Back Up Strategy

Even though you did everything right, you still may not be included into Yahoo's directory. Don't worry, follow this back up strategy:

If you used the Business Express service to submit your site and didn't get in with your first try, you'll be sent an email within 7 days stating why you weren't listed. Here's you second chance to get in. Simply fix the problem that they've indicated and then recontact your reviewer to inform them of the changes you've made in what's know as the "appeal" email by Yahoo.

If you did not use the Business Express service, you may want to contact Yahoo about your submission. When contacting Yahoo, I suggest you include the date of your submission as well as the title and URL of your web site.

Yahoo is swamped with emails, so sending them an email to them may be ineffective. What I suggest is that you either call or write to them about your site's listing (writing is the preferred method). Here's Yahoo's contact information:

Yahoo!, Inc.
3420 Central Expressway, 2nd Floor
Santa Clara, CA 95051
Main Corporate Telephone: (408) 731-3300
Fax: (408) 731-3301
User Support Telephone: (408) 731-3333 - LISTING NUMBER
Extension #1: For information on submitting a new URL
Extension #2: For information on making changes to an existing listing in Yahoo!
Extension #3: Information about Yahoo! search results

When contacting Yahoo, it's a good idea to get to the point quickly. Simply ask if they have had a chance to review your web site and reiterate how your site adds value by providing unique content to their directory.

So now you have the information needed to get your site listed in the biggest directory on the net. WHY STOP HERE? Why not use the information presented above to get more sites listed?

Should You Spend $39 for More Traffic?

Buying your way into MSN Search may be a good idea. I don't usually recommend my clients spend any money on search engine placement, but I may be about to change my mind.

For just $39 you can get listed in the third most popular search engine within 72 hours.

So why choose this option above competing payment plans from Yahoo, Overture and others? To answer that we have to have a little background information.

Determine Your Strongest Keywords

One of the keys to high placement in search engine listings is the proper use of keywords within the text of the page as well as the code. Keywords are phrases typed into search engines when someone is searching for a list of businesses in your category.

Choosing the strongest keyword phrase for a give page is therefore a critical part of optimizing your site for the search engines.

The tool I use most often to help a client choose strong keywords is WordTracker (http://www.zmoon.com/cgi-bin/pl.pl?word).

WordTracker tracks how often a keyword was typed into all the search engines for the last 60 days. After it helps you expand your keyword list it can show you how often any word or phrase was searched on in the last 2 months.

Now you might guess that a keyword searched on 5,000 times in the recent past would be a better choice than one that was only searched on 150 times. However, the critical factor is how many competing web sites have that phrase in use as well.

So if the phrase that is searched on 5,000 times has 100,000 web sites that match, it might not be as good as the lower one if it has only 25 competing sites.

Why KEI is Important to You

WordTracker uses a formula to calculate the Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI) for your keywords. It's based on the relationship between the number of times a phrase is searched on and how many competing sites contain the same phrase. You want to find keyword phrases that get a lot of searches, but have relatively few competing sites.

Keywords that have a KEI of less than 10 are so competitive it's very tough to get a high ranking. Keywords that rate a score from 11-100 are promising phrases for your site. If you can create a keyword phrase that scores between 100 and 400, but sure to use it! WordTracker says any keyword with a KEI above 400 is a gift.

The Surprising Search Engine

When you look at the KEIs produced by the different search engines, something really pops out. Given the same keyword phrase, the KEIs in MSN Search are often much higher than in Google and Yahoo.

Here's an example from a recent client. In Google, the phrase life coach rated a KEI of 3.175, hardly worth considering. Google has 58,500 sites with that phrase in its data base.

On the other hand, MSN Search only lists 29 sites with life coach on their pages. That's why the KEI is 6,405.552. So for this phrase, you definitely want to be in MSN Search because there's virtually no competition.

MSN Search only gets 12% of the search engine traffic compared to Yahoo's 33% and Google's 35%. However, that 12% represents 39 million searches a day, not too shabby in my book.

Pay to Play

You can try the free submission to MSN Search (http://submitit.bcentral.com/msnsubmit.htm) , but they don't sound too encouraging about your chances of getting listed within 60 days if at all. You can also pay Inktomi (http://www.inktomi.com/products/web_search/submit.html#subscribe) a yearly charge of $39 for your first page and $25 for subsequent pages and get listed in MSN Search and several others within 72 hours .

Yahoo charges $299 a year to be considered for admission, and Pay per Click services like Overture can churn through a lot of money in a hurry. Thirty-nine bucks sounds like a deal if you're cautiously dipping a toe into this area of search engine marketing.

Tune Up Your Pages

Of course getting listed in the search engines is only the start. If you're not on the first two pages of a search, you don't exist. So make sure that each page you submit is optimized for a specific keyword phrase.

If your site features a lot of content for your visitors, just give each topic its own page and keywords and you'll have multiple ways for people to get into your web site.

Conclusion

For just $39 you can get at least one page of your site into an arena with minimal competition. This is the least expensive search engine payment option and seems to hold the possibility of a high ranking for your site. For more suggestions on optimizing your pages, see my article (http://www.zmoon.com/articles/home_page.shtml). Good luck!

One way links explained

One-way links: Why you need them and how to get them

One-way links are links to your site from sites which do not receive a link from your site.

They send a powerful message to the search engines - that your website is so valuable or interesting or useful that other sites want to tell people about it.

One-way links are wonderful things to have because they increase your link popularity - the number of pages linking to your site. Search engines such as Google place huge importance on link popularity when ranking your site.

You can also receive direct traffic to your site from people who click on the links.

All links to your site are good, but where possible always aim for topic-related links.

Late in 2005, Matt Cutts of Google made it plain in his blog that Google frowns upon sites which "overdo" reciprocal links. Heed his warning and try to make as many of your links as possible one-way links.

Ways to get one-way links

• Create a useful, interesting web site and other sites will naturally link to it. The vast majority of the thousands of links to THIS site were not requested.
• Submit your site to major directories, such as Yahoo! and DMOZ.org, in the appropriate category.
• Write articles and submit them to newsletters which are then archived online.
• Hunt for sites that complement yours and ask them to publish your articles.
• Submit brief, useful hints to newsletters for the same reason.
• Submit articles to article directories. You can speed up this tedious work by using ArticleAnnouncer , the tool professionals use.
  
• Publish articles on your site and invite other sites to publish them on their sites, with a link to you.
• Write testimonials for products you love. Companies often post testimonials on their site with a link to the submitting site. Joe Vitale has taken this tactic to extraordinary lengths. For examples, trying doing a search on Google for "joe vitale +testimonial".
• Participate helpfully in forums which allow a text link to your site in a signature. Start with the friendly, helpful AssociatePrograms.com affiliate forum . Read the forum instructions first, or you risk making an ass of yourself.
• Consider buying text link ads on other sites, for example from Linkadage or Text Link Ads. (Remember that Matt Cutts has written unfavorably about buying links.) Better still, arrange for articles to be published on other sites with a link to your site in them. You may have to use some innovative thinking to achieve this. The results make the effort worth while.
  
• Buy ads in newsletters on your topic which are archived online.
• Locate industry-specific directories and submit your site to them. For example, if your site is on a health topic, look for health-related directories.
• Give away free ebooks and white papers that contain links to your site.
• Create simple web-based free software. Tell other sites, newsletters and forums about it and ask for a link to it.
• Create downloadable software which contains links to your site.
• Get listed in business directories.
• Create a blog and get it listed in blog directories.
• Join business associations which list their members' sites online.
• Write regular news releases and submit them to topic-related web sites and Internet news wires such as PRWeb and Business Wire.
• Make arrangements for other sites to archive your newsletters on their sites.
• Get your white papers published on other web sites.
• Submit your free ebooks to ebook directories.
• Submit your downloadable software to software directories, such as Download.com
• Locate a popular site in your niche which would appreciate having you as a regular columnist. Write tips, lively commentary, product reviews, or whatever topics suit your niche.
• Syndicate your material to other sites. Create a content syndication feed (RSS feed) and include a link to your site. Use PHP rather than Javascript to ensure search engines parse your headings and links.
• Do something funny or outrageous or brilliant and people will link to your site without being asked.
• Use gimmicks. If people see something odd on a website, they'll often tell other people about it. You can also alert newsletter publishers and suggest they mention your gimmick in their newsletter. For example, Jim Crawford tells us how to make a sound play with a mouseover .

Power linking maestro

Jack Humphrey is a linking specialist.

In Power Linking 2: Evolution he describes how he gets links. The book includes screenshots, links to real examples, and audio clips. There's a lot more to getting links than merely exchanging reciprocal links.

You may not want to use all the cutting-edge tactics he describes. He covers a lot of ground.