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 Issue #65 - April 19th, 2005 Internet Marketing Newsletter for Small Businesses
Brought to you by idesignbusiness.com http://www.idesignbusiness.com Issue # 65 Tuesday, April 19th, 2005 In this Issue: ARTICLES: FREE RESOURCE: Welcome to Issue # 65 of the Internet Marketing for Small Business Newsletter. This issue’s article discusses the importance of Directory Listings. There is a common misconception that Search Engines and Directories are one and the same and this article does a nice job of clearly defining the role of directories on the web. It also provides actionable steps of ways you can get your website listed in the many human-edited directories available on the Net. We would love to hear any questions, comments, or ideas for future articles, just email us at newsletters@idesignbusiness.com Did you miss the last issue? You can always visit our idesignbusiness Internet Newsletter Archive and easily view and search all our past issues. Neal St. Clair idesignbusiness Advertisement idesignbusiness Mail Manager Create and send professional email campaigns with the idesignbusiness Mail Manager. Stay in touch with current clients through online newsletters and updates and gain new customers through online coupons and promotions. The Mail Manager provides all the tools you need to create, manage, and track professional email campaigns. Try the Mail Manager today with no obligation. 30 day free trial no Credit Card required to sign up. Click here for 30 day free trial ARTICLE Driving Qualified Traffic Using Directories By Lee Traupel Some education is essential to enlighten you about this form of interactive marketing. Directories aren't Search Engines; they are web sites or information portals which use analysts on staff to review submissions from companies who want to be listed in their Directory. Yahoo would be the penultimate example of this type of a portal. But there are literally thousands of other sites that group and list web sites based on their analysis criteria. Here are some tips garnered from years of providing these services to our clients. 1. How do you find Directories? I don’t have an easy solution for you, as we’ve spent years developing and refining (ongoing) our own list of Directories. But, look around on the Internet using Search Engines to find popular sites that list resources in your vertical market segment. 2. Directory listings are a great value, as they provide a long-term listing, unlike Search Engine rankings which are much more volatile. Once you achieve a listing you are typically locked into a Directory’s database for a very long time. 3. Let’s start with the twenty-ton gorilla in this market, Yahoo! Spend time carefully reviewing their various categories, then take the plunge and use their "Business Express" service which costs just under $200. (USD) to submit your site. Don’t, I repeat don’t submit unless you have carefully analyzed where you belong in their huge category selections; if you make a mistake you only have one chance to get a new or revised listing, as they aren’t very forgiving of those who don't do their homework before submitting. 4. Be patient when submitting to Directories, as most are getting tens or hundreds of thousands of submissions per day - it will take 30-90 days to actually get listed. Keep an accurate record of sites you have posted to and then check back 60-90 days later and resubmit if necessary, but don’t spam them, as this will not garner any results. 5. Never submit a site unless it is ready for primetime, with no broken links, under construction pages, incomplete text, graphics that aren’t loading properly, etc. Indexers are very busy, once they see a site which has problems they will click to the next entry on their list and your hard work is to no avail. 6. Be prepared with the proper marketing materials for this type of a campaign, including a working title for your site which is 6-8 words, several groups of keywords that are separated by commas and spaces of varying lengths, approx 10-20 and 30-75 keywords, and a longer description of your site which can be one to two sentences. 7. Part of the required expertise involved in this process is in the actual category selection - carefully select which category or categories where you think your site fits by looking at others in this category to determine if you fit into this classification. 8. Be aware we are seeing a shift to fee-based submissions to shortcut the process - Yahoo started the trend over a year ago, now LookSmart and other top tier Directories are starting to do the same. The tradeoff is of course minimizing time to market - we recommend using the commercial services to our clients. 9. Want to know if this process has actually done anything for you? Check your log files or web site analysis software and look at where your traffic is coming from. 10. If you are getting significant traffic from a small list of Directories you may want to go back to their web site and pay for their premium listing services to drive more traffic. These enhanced listings services typically enable you to bold your listing or add graphical content which enhances the textual description, usually only for a few hundred dollars per year. About The Author Lee Traupel has 20 plus years of business development and marketing experience - he is the founder of Intelective Communications, Inc., http://www.intelective.com a results-driven marketing services company providing proprietary services to clients encompassing startups to public companies. Lee@intelective.com Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/ Advertisement Keep Your Website Fresh, Relevant and Up-to-Date Do you update your website on a regular basis? Fresh content is the number one thing that will bring people to your website and keep them coming for more. idesignbusiness offers comprehensive Website Maintenance plans to help you keep your website up to date. Have your own professional webmaster for less than $25 per month! We can handle all technical aspects of your website including updating text, images, links, databases and more. Contact us today for more information and rates for your website and needs. info@idesignbusiness.com FREE RESOURCE: Each issue of the Internet Marketing Newsletter for Small Businesses will include helpful free online resources to promote your websites. idesignbusiness is excited to introduce LinkSource.info, a free online link directory that connects webmasters and business owners that are interested in setting up reciprocal link exchanges. LinkSource.info will help you quickly and easily increase your website traffic and search engine rankings through targeted link exchanges. LinkSource.info was launched this month and we are excited to share the service with you. Please tell your friends and colleagues about the website. As the community grows all members will benefit from additional targeted links available for their website. LinkSource.info ABOUT idesignbusiness idesignbusiness provides complete Internet services for small businesses including website design, website development, hosting and Internet marketing. Increase website traffic, build your customer base, and drive revenue using our cost-effective and result driven tools and services. Please visit http://www.idesignbusiness.com for more information. SUBSCRIPTION NOTICE This newsletter is only sent to opt-in subscribers. If at anytime you would like to be removed from this list, please send an e-mail to newsletters@idesignbusiness.com with REMOVE in the subject line or click on the remove link below. Spread the word - Please forward to friends and colleagues. 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