How to Improve Your Directory Submission Acceptance Rate?
Written by Mukul Gupta
Unlike Search Engines, the process of review of directory submission is carried out manually, by “Experts”. They also have stringent rules and guidelines for listing your site. You may ask why; but these rules are there to ensure good directory submission and effective review procedures. It helps the editor to evaluate a site and decide whether to accept or reject it. All these combined results in a great deal of scrutiny being carried out before your site gets listed on directories.
But you can easily make your submissions an instant success with most of the directories. All you need to do is pay a little attention to the details you provide for Directory Submission. Your little efforts will be richly rewarded.
Here are few Golden rules you should always follow before beginning Directory Submission.
Before You Begin Directory Submission
Before you begin directory submission, make you have taken note of the following:
• Do not submit a mirror page; most directories don’t accept mirror pages.
• Do not submit any “Under construction” pages.
• Always submit the top-level domain of your site.
For example: The correct URL to submit for my site is www.submit2please.com. Do not add index.html or any sub domains.
• Check all your links. Broken links are a sign poor site management which may not go down well with the directories.
Chose the most appropriate Category for your site
Web directories are sorted by topic and editors frequently take great pride in ensuring that everything stays well categorized. So, put up your website in the right category. The search engines look at the various links that are on the page on which you are listed. This can lead to better rankings.
Tip: To find appropriate categories for a site, you can go to Dmoz.org and type in the product/service keyword. You can also search for your rival site and check out the category under which they are submitted.
Pay attention to the description and use of key words
The most common restriction forced by directories is on the size of your description and keywords. The trick is to come up with such a description for your site that can conveniently fit into 100, 150, 200, and 250 characters length. Do all this before you get down to the real job of directory submission. The reason for keeping four lengths of description is that you never know which one will be accepted in which directory. Remember that you may not be able to pen down everything about your site, so write what is unique and relevant. Avoid using a sales pitch and/or promotional language. Try and be informative and friendly.
Here are few more points you should always bear in mind while writing a description for directory submission:
• Do not repeat your title or site URL in the description.
• Do not use all caps; use mixed case.
• Use complete sentences.
• Do not say the word site or website, as in “this site offers”
• Do not use any hype like “the best” or “excellent.”
• Fit your main keyword phrases in but do not repeat them.
Once you have taken care of all these, you have over come the most difficult part of directory submission. The same should be followed for keywords. When it comes to directory submission, all you need to do is to pick up the most appropriate one and hit enter.
Tip: This is what I call an ideal description for my site Submit2Please.com, “We submit Web Sites, Articles, Blogs, Press Releases, Scripts and RSS Feeds to Search Engine Friendly Directories. The directory submission is carried out manually by trained in-house directory submission experts.”
Site Title
Pay attention to your site title. You should ideally not use any URL and key words in it, until and unless they are absolutely necessary to describe your site. Remember, be precise and straight forward!
Tip: You should identify at least 3-4 titles for your site and rotate them during Directory Submission. In this way you can get the maximum optimization benefit for your site through Directory Submission.
All the above mentioned “Golden Rules” stand good for most directories on the internet including Dmoz.org. Thus, by exercise necessary caution before directory submission, you can save a lot of precious time and energy. With the right advice and steps, directory submission may be the most significant thing you will ever do for your website.
