If you’ve a website (old or new) it’s important to
make your website “visible” in the Internet, esp. if you want a long-term
presence on the Internet. Just creating a site IS NOT enough. People around the
globe will not be aware of your site unless & until you take certain steps.
One of them is Directory Listing or Submission. That is registering your site
in online Directories (which is equivalent to your Telephone Directory). And in
most Directories submitting of your site is FREE!
There are 100’s of these online Directories
containing a huge list of websites under a comprehensive list of categories
& sub-categories & sub-sub-categories (for ex., Health > Alternative
Medicine > Homeopathy). You’ve to submit your website to one of these
Directories & register it under one of the niche market your website is
targeting.
Luckily for you, submitting your website to the
majority of these Directories is – FREE! But there’re paid Directory listing
services too. So what’s the difference between FREE & PAID service? For the
paid service, your site will be approved quickly & will exist in the
Directory for a long period (as per the Directory rules). The Free service does
not enjoy these benefits (in fact, in can take several months to be approved).
And this is interesting…
By submitting your site to Directories (THE MORE DIRECTORIES
YOU SUBMIT TO THE BETTER) you can rank higher in Search Engine Result Pages. Or
in simple terms, Search Engines like, Google, Yahoo & others will look upon
your site very favourably – because your site is getting “Incoming links” (aka
“backlinks”) from these Directories (which are already popular) & will,
therefore, happily display your site in Search Engine Result Pages within the
first 1 or 2 pages.
FYKI, the greater the no. of these “backlinks” (from already
estd. sites) to your site the better you’ll be favourably ranked by major
search engines like, Google, Yahoo & others.
Directories
also offer Reciprocal Link facility, through which your
site can have a link to the Directory (“2-way linking”). This is also another
way of popularizing your website (from the point of view of Search Engines) as
your site is connecting to very popular Directory sites.
Remember, submitting your site to just 2 or 3 Directories is
NOT enough, at all! The more the better – if you’re really aiming for long-term
presence in the Net!