And you don’t have to bookmark just your home page; as you build content that you think others might be interested in, you can bookmark those pages as well. From time to time I’ve visited Searchles and bookmarked articles from SEO Chat. They have several groups devoted to directories and SEO, so when we publish an article I think they’ll find of particular interest, I bookmark it there. Sometimes another member of their community has even visited SEO Chat and independently bookmarked an article for which I didn’t post the link to Searchles. Other social bookmarking communities you should consider include del.icio.us, BlinkList, StumbleUpon, and Furl; there are many more. Every company has them. Every directory optimization company should be interested in knowing what they are. These vital components of your marketing strategy can be a huge determinant in the keyphrases that are targeted in your optimization campaign. Social bookmarking sites are another place for you to consider. Post a link to your site and tag it with relevant keywords. Google and other major directories visit social bookmarking sites regularly, so this is another way to help your site get indexed. Don’t be rude about it though, or the community will brand you a spammer and act accordingly. For example, do you provide customized solutions in an otherwise highly-commoditized industry? Modifiers like "specialty" and "customized" added to your keyphrases will help you to obtain the types of visitors most likely to be looking for exactly what you offer. This is only one example - a typical marketing plan will detail several points that effectively differentiate the company from its competition, and a good directory optimization firm will take the time to understand what these are. By knowing and understanding these points of differentiation, an optimization company will be able to get the most out of your campaign. Staying focused on the blogging theme, if you’re in a professional field you probably frequent web sites related to that field; they might even have their own blogs and/or forums. If not, there are plenty of blog directories you can use. Michael D. Jensen of Solo SEO recommends finding five fairly popular blogs that are relevant to your site and have been updated within the last couple of days. Then you should read the post and make a comment that contributes to the discussion. Most of the time, comments to blogs offer a field for a URL; that’s where you put the URL for your web site. It will give you and the site some exposure in context, and if you’ve written something intelligent, blog readers will be predisposed to favor your web site (because you’ve just shown you know what you’re talking about). High-Profit Segments Most companies have certain products or services that are more profitable than others that they offer. Some companies may also have some new products or services that they are aggressively targeting. Without the knowledge of these facts, your directory optimization company is likely to target all areas of your business equally. If your web site’s goals fit well with keeping a blog, you have one possibility. Of course, blogs aren’t a requirement; you could just make sure to write compelling enough content that others want to link to it or even write about it. That hypothetical plumber I mentioned earlier in a quote from Wall might not get any customers from talking about legendary plumbing disasters, but what if he did an article on five fast ways to keep your plumbing system running smoothly? Or maybe he could write one on the seven hidden signs that your system might be malfunctioning. (I just bet mold is one of them). I’m just pulling these numbers out of thin air, you understand, but I think you get my point. Defining Prospects Are your prospects already educated about your industry, or are they looking for solutions to a particular problem? Are they a mix of both? Your directory optimization company should be asking you about the makeup of your client base. Targeting highly technical and specific keyphrases (such as "email deliverability testing platforms") could attract highly-educated prospects, while targeting solution-based keyphrases (such as "marketing through email") will target someone who is looking for a solution while not necessarily understanding exactly how it is provided. Does your marketing strategy have a preference as to which sort of prospect you seek? Is it a mixture of both? If so, what is the percentage breakdown? Your directory optimization company should be asking you these questions in order to bring you the most qualified prospects. Change over Time Going for the Links You’ve properly set up your internal linking structure for your web site, but what about external links? Many new web sites find this challenging. Everyone knows that Google counts an outgoing link to a site as a “vote” saying that site is relevant. Votes help your site reach a higher position in the SERPs (along with tens of other factors in Google’s algorithm). But how do you get those votes? Unless you are in one of those rare industries that hasn't changed much for 50 years, your marketing strategy will likely shift to accommodate new challenges and new opportunities. As an extension of your marketing team, a good directory optimization company will want to keep abreast of these changes and adjust your campaign according to what is current today. All too often, a company will change its products or services, adjust its Clearly, this would not serve your company well if your marketing strategy was calling for phase-outs of certain product or service lines, a focus on higher margin business, or aggressive promotion of new offerings. Allocation of targeted keyphrases must be in line with your marketing strategy in order for you to get the most out of the campaign, and a quality directory optimization company will pursue the data that it needs to make a proper allocation. prospect profile, or decide to focus on other areas of business without letting the directory optimization company know that its marketing strategy has changed. A quality search firm will be proactive in finding out if any of these changes have occurred and will address them at the same time that you are, assuring that your directory optimization campaign is in full alignment with your current marketing goals. Another step you can take is to install Google Analytics in your web site. It’s free. You’ll have to verify your site with Google to get the data collection started. Google even has a special blog for the service, free product support, a help center and something called Conversion University with a good assortment of articles. Basically, Analytics tracks the traffic to your web site, showing you where your visitors come from and how they interact with your site. This kind of information will be invaluable over time as you grow your site and make various changes. These represent only a few examples of how a good directory optimization firm will want to fully understand your marketing strategy throughout the lifetime of your directory optimization campaign. While it is true that no single company ever understands your business as well as your company does, it's also true that a directory optimization company with a stellar track record will understand directory optimization better than your company will. The marriage of knowledge between the two entities can be the single largest determinant in the level of success (or failure) of your campaign. If you suspect that your directory optimization company is taking a cookie-cutter approach to your campaign and is not taking the time to fully understand your marketing strategy, it may be advisable to look elsewhere. (C) Medium Blue 2007 About the Author I said earlier that blogging is inappropriate for some web sites. That’s true, but it’s also true that if you’re posting some kind of content regularly, you might find it advantageous to base your CMS around a blogging system that is friendly to search engines. I’ve seen WordPress recommended as a good system for this purpose. Best of all, it is open source, so if you need to modify it to make it work for you, you can. As Mark Jackson writing for directory Watch noted, “I figure if it’s good enough for Matt Cutts’ blog, it’s good enough for us to modify into a CMS.” Scott Buresh is the CEO of Medium Blue, a directory optimization company. Scott has contributed content to many publications including Building Your Business with Google For Dummies (Wiley, 2004), MarketingProfs, ZDNet, WebProNews, Lockergnome, DarwinMag, SiteProNews, ISEDB, and directory Guide. Another thing that will help both Google and you is building and submitting a site map. I don’t mean the kind of navigational site map that a visitor can get to from a link on your web site, though that’s a good idea too. I mean an XML site map of the sort that can help the robots from the directories know exactly where to go to index your site. There’s an official web site set up by all three major directories that explains the sitemap standard and how to create one. There are also many tools available for automatically generating XML sitemaps; a Google search for “XML sitemap generator,” without quotes, yields 1,780,000 hits. Many of these tools are free. Still, if you’re at all technically inclined, I’d recommend reading through the information at Sitemaps.org, so you understand the structure. 40.directory Optimization for Dynamic Websites One of the major issues which have always raised questions among the directory optimization fraternity is" directory Optimization (SEO) for Dynamic Websites". In this whitepaper, we will show you how to optimize dynamic websites for top directory rankings. But, first the basics. Get Help from Google Google can help make your life easier – and vice versa. By all means, sign up for a Google Webmaster Central account. Google is more forthcoming these days, with services such as duplicate content reports. Paying attention to what Google can tell you may give you a competitive edge over your rivals. Of course, they may already be using it – in which case, you’d still be smart to sign up. What are "Dynamic Websites"? Dynamic websites are websites whose pages are generated on the fly. Unlike static pages (primarily .htm/.html pages), dynamic pages are generated when an user triggers an action through that particular page. Here isa sample dynamic URL- http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?q=%22dynamic+websites%22&tab=news &go=homepage As per the above example of www.bbc.co.uk, the dynamic part (i.e. the part) of the URL which changes as per surfer request is the part after the question mark (?) What are the problems that directories face in indexing Dynamic URLs? 1. directories often consider a dynamic URL as an infinite set of links. How are you going to build up your content? One obvious example you’ll hear everywhere is through blogging. 2. Since dynamic URLs find maximum application in online shopping carts, there is a possibility of incorporating a session id to a particular page. As session ids of that particular page change, the directory spider needs to index an infinite number of copies of the same page, which is a Herculean task for them.
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