Submit to YAHOO! - Get the traffic you deserve!

  You get one chance, maybe two if you're lucky. When you submit to YAHOO! you can be buried in the crowd or you can top the charts. It's the difference between a trickle of traffic Vs hundreds or thousands of monthly visitors. Before you submit to YAHOO! do your homework!

At this point, you've read the directory submission checklist your developed your keyword marketing strategy right? OK - Let's go!

First we need to understand what YAHOO! considers when they rank sites, and we'll use the Google listing in YAHOO! as an example. There are 3 important elements of a YAHOO! listing. They are the category in which a site is listed, title of the site, and the description:

Computers and Internet > Internet > World Wide Web > Searching the Web > Search Engines and Directories

Google - uses text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search.

When you submit to YAHOO!, all words in the category, title, and description are keywords for which your site will show up somewhere in the search results. Google will show up in the results for "computer text matching techniques", "Google web directory" and "important web pages" as well as other combinations.

The next step is to refer to your keyword list formulated previously. Pick relevant, frequently searched terms (The GoTo keyword tool can help here and Word Tracker is a valuable service) and phrases. Plug them into the YAHOO! search box and note the categories returned as well as the number of web sites returned.

  Chances are one of the categories returned will be appropriate for your site. The higher the category in the search results the better. Now that you have chosen your category, its time to craft your description. (The title of your site will be the name of your company or the site you are submitting).

As you search YAHOO! using your best keywords take note of searches that return less than 2 pages of results (40 listings max). For example, if one of your keywords was "Google text" that phrase should go in the site description. Your site would be guaranteed to come up in the top 2 results for that 2-word phrase. Repeat this procedure for up to 5 keyword phrases which can be combined into one coherent sentence or phrase that reflects the content of your site. You are now ready to submit!

There are 2 options when you submit to YAHOO!

• Business express - Requires a nonrefundable fee of $199.00 for a review of the site within 7 days from the date of submission. (which does not guarantee a listing!)
• Free submission - Available in some categories, and typically takes much longer to get listed this way.

If everything is aligned correctly; your site has no broken links, images, or errors, and is factually represented by the description you submit, it will be accepted. This is as close as you can come to "guaranteed rankings" when you submit to YAHOO!

In addition to ranking sites based on keywords, YAHOO! takes into account click popularity. If your site gets lots of click-throughs from YAHOO!, it will tend to rise in the rankings.

There are 3 major web directories, after you submit to YAHOO! be sure to submit to LookSmart and submit to ODP as well.