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<title>Latest Directories Articles</title>
<link>http://www.populate.net/</link>
<description>Articles at Populate.NET</description>
<language>en-us</language>
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<title>What about Internet Marketing Tactics in General?</title>
<link>http://www.populate.net/Internet_Marketing/Directories/what-about-internet-marketing-tactics-in-general.html</link>
<guid>http://www.populate.net/Internet_Marketing/Directories/what-about-internet-marketing-tactics-in-general.html</guid>
<pubDate>Sun, 25 Jan 2009 22:29:21 -0800</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[ Setting up your internet marketing web site to do complete eCommerce is easier than it might seem. There are a variety of excellent services and facilities available to make the job easy for your. Let's take a quick walkthrough the basic requirements.<br />	<br />First, your product or services need to be visible on your site. For more detail go to: www.inside-the-minds-of-winner.com. Generally this involves adding a catalog of products or services to your web site. In some cases, you might set this up on a commercial ecommerce site such as Yahoo! Small Business or you may want to put it up on your own site. If you expect to be changing products frequently or introducing new ones regularly, make sure your site is easy to update.<br /><br />What about Internet marketing tactics in general? Do you ever go searching on the Internet to see what the new forms of advertising are? Are you up with the latest? The only way to do this is to actually become part of the traffic that searches out these items. This means going to search engines, Blogs, message boards, and just about anywhere else where this information can be found.<br /><br />The second component, a key one, of your internet marketing web site is the ability to accept orders. This means that visitors have to be able to select a product or service, put it in an electronic â€œshopping cartâ€ and then, when they're done shopping, and take their merchandise to a virtual check-out counter to pay for it. Shopping cart functionality can be purchased for incorporating in your own site or you can utilize a 3rd party service to do so.<br /><br />Third, you have to be able to accept payments. Nowadays it is especially easy to accept payments on your web site or via email. for more detail go to:www.ultimate-internet-marketing-tricks.com.Services like Papal and many others will allow you to easily accept credit cards, bank transfers, and handle multiple currencies.<br /><br />If you're new at ecommerce it probably makes the best sense to first integrate your internet marketing web site with a complete service such as that offered by Yahoo! Small Business before you invest in a major web site development project. Their service, like those at many ecommerce hosting organizations will provide you with A-to-Z support for your entire ecommerce activity. Once you've ironed out all the wrinkles, you can look toward integrating their services with your own internet marketing web site.<br /> ]]></description>
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<title>6 Vital Components about Internet Marketing</title>
<link>http://www.populate.net/Internet_Marketing/Directories/6-vital-components-about-internet-marketing.html</link>
<guid>http://www.populate.net/Internet_Marketing/Directories/6-vital-components-about-internet-marketing.html</guid>
<pubDate>Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:32:39 -0800</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[ Set up a Web Site Do not underestimate the importance of having a good e-book internet marketing strategy. It will make or break your success in terms of the number of copies your e-book sells, and the revenue and profit you ultimately receive from sales of your e-book.<br /><br />1. The first and most important weapon in your e-book marketing arsenal must be a web site containing a sales page for the e-book. Your sales page should be well-designed and contain plenty of information about your e-book. This information should include features and benefits to the readers, and of course, testimonials from your satisfied customers. <br /><br />2. Build Your Own Mailing List if you don't already have a mailing list and your own newsletter, start one. You may already have heard that, on average, people need to see a marketing message seven times before they will take action and place an order. A newsletter is a great way to keep your message in front of your audience on a regular basis, and at the same time you will be building up their trust in you as they get to know you and the quality of your information. <br /><br />3. Sell Your E-book Through Click Bank Why use Click Bank? There are several reasons why I recommend that you consider selling your e-book through Click Bank. First, Click Bank is a very experienced partner to have when selling an e-book. There are already 10,000 publishers and authors selling information products using their system. Click Bank has an army of 100,000 affiliates ready to â€˜jump on your bandwagon' and start promoting your hot new e-book. Finally, Click Bank works neatly in conjunction with your own web site and newsletter. You simply add the special links given to you by Click Bank into your newsletter and web site, and whenever anyone clicks through your order link, they will be taken to a professional order form where they can pay using their credit card or Papal. <br /><br />4. Article Marketing Article marketing involves writing articles and making them available for webmasters and editors to publish. To promote an e-book successfully using article marketing you should write articles on topics closely related your e-book. Your author's resource box should be a small paragraph or two about you including a direct link to the web page for your e-book. Besides being a good way to generate traffic, article marketing is a great technique for increasing your brand awareness. <br /><br />5. Pay per Click Advertising Pay per Click (PPC) advertising is one of the quickest ways to drive traffic to your e-book's sales page. It is certainly not the cheapest source of traffic, but it is probably the most effective technique to guarantee a large quantity of traffic, fast. <br /><br />6. Regular Advertising Regular classified advertising is a form of advertising which is particularly common in newspapers and magazines. Many online rezones and email newsletters offer classified advertising spots. Advertising in these can be one of the best sources of targeted traffic, since you have the ability to select those newsletters with an audience that most closely resembles your own target audience. And don't dismiss offline classified advertising. <br /><br />It is possible to run a classified advertisement in an offline publication such as a newspaper or carefully targeted magazine and get an excellent response of people checking out your e-book. ]]></description>
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<title>Build a Name for Your Website with a Website Directory</title>
<link>http://www.populate.net/Internet_Marketing/Directories/build-a-name-for-your-website-with-a-website-directory.html</link>
<guid>http://www.populate.net/Internet_Marketing/Directories/build-a-name-for-your-website-with-a-website-directory.html</guid>
<pubDate>Thu, 30 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[ You've built a brand new website for your business and you're really excited. However, you have to do something to get the word out and you're not sure what to do. You know that you can post flyers all over your town or simply tell your friends, but that's not going to do much for you. So what are you going to do?

Well, you're going to start with a website directory. The website directory is an effective way to combat the always changing algorithms of search engines and to really get an edge on the competition. Basically, you need to do all that you can to ensure that you are marketing your site correctly and a website directory is going to help you do that. You're going to be able to battle some of the hardships of Internet marketing is you use a directory to get the word out. 

Using the directory

Another thing that is special about submitting your website to a website directory is that you get a free back link to your website. The back link is very important because the more links you have on the web, the better off your site is. This means it is going to be indexed by search engine spiders. 

You see, search engine spiders follow these links to your site and then they index your site. The more links you have out there, the more your site is going to be indexed. This means that you'll show up higher in the search engine results when someone searches for what it is you are offering your customers and potential customers. 

As for how the directory works, it is a place in which the websites are compiled into categories. They are also divided up into subcategories to make searching easier. Because these categories are divided up into subcategories, the search engine spiders recognize them. Needless to say, these directories are visited by search engine spiders more than many other sites. This is because of the quality of the back links. The back links are of a high quality at these sites, which is why you need to utilize a website directory. 

Choosing the right website directory

Choosing the right website directory doesn't have to be difficult. There are some things that you have to look for in order to make that determination. Those things are:

To pay or not to pay - There are pay directories and there are free directories. Determine which is best for you. Free directories still provide you with that back link. It is true there will be a lot more sites posted there, but they are effective. 

Check the page rank - Check the page rank of the website directory. That way, you know that it is a popular site. You can also check into sites to see how they are growing. If a site is growing, then that is a sign that it is a popular directory that is emerging. You definitely want to get in on that.

Look at both general and specific directories - You want to do this because both can be effective. You can post on a specific directory and post on a general directory. This will broaden the exposure that your site gets. 

You don't have to be restricted to just one website directory. You can use all sorts of website directories. This is important in getting those high quality back links that will make your site successful. There is not a rule anywhere that says you're only allowed to post your website to a single website directory. If there were, then it would be impossible for a lot of sites to be successful on the Internet. 

Submission options

You also have submission options. These options are manual, using submission software, and using a directory submission service. The directory submission service may use software or do it manually. However, there are article directories out there that will not accept submissions from software. They want to ensure that real people are doing the posting. Many of these directories have real people approving the submissions, so it is hard if they have to approve thousands of submissions submitted by these software programs. It happens, but it is a good idea to do it manually. If you don't have time to do it yourself, look into the directory submission service. 

How to maximize the benefits

It isn't enough to simply post your website link up on a website directory. There are ways in which you can maximize the benefits. It will be worth your while to follow these tips so that you can make sure that you profit from your efforts:

If you're submitting to more than one website directory, you need to vary your description. Don't use the same description for every directory. 

Make sure the text that accompanies your website link is really good stuff. That means you want it to draw people in. You want them to click on your link. Believe it or not, people browse website directories, especially if they're looking for a website that focuses on certain material.

Make as many submissions as possible to website directories. Make sure they are directories that you can track back easily. Make sure they are easy to manage as well. You don't want to go for directories that are hard to follow. 

Make sure that you choose directories that will also allow you to submit the links to your inner pages. This allows for better indexing and will also allow more people to find you. 

After this, you might as well give your website a pair of running shoes. This is because it is going to take off like wildfire. It is going to run like the wind. It is important that you be prepared, because the moment you start submitting your site is the moment that it enters the race of website popularity. ]]></description>
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<title>What A Bidding Web Directory Can Do For You?</title>
<link>http://www.populate.net/Internet_Marketing/Directories/what-a-bidding-web-directory-can-do-for-you.html</link>
<guid>http://www.populate.net/Internet_Marketing/Directories/what-a-bidding-web-directory-can-do-for-you.html</guid>
<pubDate>Wed, 08 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[ If you want to make points about a bidding directory to different people that work in that field. Every field has these types of mental blocks in them that are taboo topics for discussion and if you want to get past those mental blocks you need to first understand what has caused them and then secondly devise a strategy to counter that cause. If we do this in the case of the bidding web directory concept, the results are quite telling.

The first of those two steps (i.e. the figuring out the cause step) is actually quite easy to accomplish in the case of the bidding directory concept. The main reason that there is a stigma towards a bidding web directory concept in the online marketing world is that the modern focus when it comes to online marketing is getting things done for free. 

Under the large umbrella of free online marketing includes many different web 2.0 applications, but it also of course includes the process of writing an article and then submitting that article to article directories at the same time that you are submitting links for your website to link directories. In both of these cases, you are doing something for free and you are getting your link on a directory as a result. Because both of these activities are free, most people believe that a bidding directory is nothing but a big scam and therefore it is taboo to talk about it anywhere in the online marketing world.

However, if you want your business to truly flourish, you need to get around this mental block and understand that anything that returns more than its value is a good investment in the long term. If you use this criterion as the main way in which you make decisions about your online marketing business, you will very quickly come to the realization that the bidding directory can be a very big asset in your quest to make your internet marketing business bigger and better. 

The main reason for this is that a bidding web directory can save you massive amounts of time if you are willing to pay for the services of what you could do elsewhere for more time and no money whatsoever. Time and money are often interchangeable in the equations of online marketing and this means that if you are willing to pay, you can get far more done with a bidding directory than you ever would be able to with normal link submission strategies.

Once you understand this concept, you can go ahead and decide whether using a bidding web directory is worthwhile in the context of your business or not. However, you do owe it to your business to understand the value of a bidding directory, rather than just dismissing the concept out of hand as many in the internet marketing business tend to do. ]]></description>
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<title>Utilizing The Web Directory To Its Maximum Effectiveness</title>
<link>http://www.populate.net/Internet_Marketing/Directories/utilizing-the-web-directory-to-its-maximum-effectiveness.html</link>
<guid>http://www.populate.net/Internet_Marketing/Directories/utilizing-the-web-directory-to-its-maximum-effectiveness.html</guid>
<pubDate>Wed, 08 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[ A directory in the typical sense of the word is something that you check for information on other things. For example, a phone directory is a book that is delivered to your house by the government and it is a book that you can check if you are looking for the phone number of a particular place or person. 

By the same token, a business directory is a plaque at the front of an office building that shows all of the different offices and who inhabits those offices to get things done. Finally, a web directory is something that you look at when you are looking for a particular website to visit. The average directory has links to hundreds of different websites within its virtual real estate space and because of that it is a place that you should definitely earmark if you are trying to get your link shown in many places where it matters.

When it comes to your own website, the best web directory to visit would be a web directory that deals with your particular field or niche. This means that if you are running a website that deals with training your dog, getting your link into different web directories that deal with pets, pet care and dogs would be of a high priority. Likewise, if you are running a website that helps other people with internet marketing, getting your link into a web directory or directories that deal with the subject of internet marketing in some way would be the way to go. 

Most of the web directories that you will find on the internet are directories that focus on a particular niche and this is particularly why you should make sure that your first targeting point when it comes to getting your link into a web directory is the directories that deal with your specific niche. Doing this will increase the exposure your website gets from targeted and interested individuals from day one.

If and only if you find yourself floundering for things to do once you have placed your link into all of the niche-targeted web directories you can find that are related to your particular website topic, you should then go ahead and start targeting general web directories or alternatively web directories that cover a wide range of topics. These directories were very likely skipped when you last went and took a look at them and if you have the extra time in your marketing plan you can always come back to them now and get your links into them. 

It is the experience of most internet marketers that general web directory websites are usually not as good as their niche counterparts when it comes to promoting websites, but they will get you a handful of visitors a month and for that reason getting your links into them is always a good idea. The web directory is a powerful tool, regardless of whether it is general or niche in nature and that is precisely why directory websites should be a big part of your marketing strategy. ]]></description>
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<title>Using A Web Directory And A Link Directory As A One-Two Punch</title>
<link>http://www.populate.net/Internet_Marketing/Directories/using-a-web-directory-and-a-link-directory-as-a-one-two-punch.html</link>
<guid>http://www.populate.net/Internet_Marketing/Directories/using-a-web-directory-and-a-link-directory-as-a-one-two-punch.html</guid>
<pubDate>Wed, 08 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[ If you talk to them in an official capacity they think of themselves are being the most innovative and the most creative in spite of the fact that television and print advertising nowadays is at an all time low in terms of ingenuity. However, if you were to corner these people in a social situation off the record and ask them the same questions, most of them would admit that they stuff they do does not hold a candle to their online counterparts and this is where both the web directory and the link directory come into play.

Many people use the terms web directory and link directory interchangeably and this is where a lot of confusion comes into the picture, but the basic difference is that a web directory may link to other sites, but it may also have other content as well whereas a link directory is definitely going to be about links and nothing but links. As an innovative and creative online marketer however, both the web directory and the link directory have quite a bit to offer to your marketing campaign. If you utilize both of these marketing techniques and then combine them into a one-two punch, you will find the results to be quite spectacular indeed.

This one-two punch strategy will start with the link directory as in most cases that will be the easier directory to handle. You start the first part of the one-two punch by submitting your website URL to a link directory that holds your interest and then you wait until the link directory has been updated to reflect your particular website. This may take anywhere from a few seconds to a few weeks depending on the particular directory in question, but you do need to make sure that the link directory has the information about your website up there before you go onto the next step.

Once the information is in place, you should then go to the web directory and create two pieces of content. The first piece of content will be a link similar to the one you put on the link directory leading to the same place with whatever content you might think is necessary to make that link interesting. Once you have that in place, you should then add a second page of content to the web directory that links to the part of the link directory where your website is located. 

The reason that this is a good idea is that the second link (the one that goes to the link directory) will pick up stragglers that do not end up clicking on the first link, but those same stragglers will partially find their way to your website anyway through the link directory information you made sure was posted before you proceeded to this step. It is a way of leveraging the information you place to get more hits on your website and it is a very innovative tactic that, when used properly, can really win big for your website. ]]></description>
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<title>Advantages Of California Web Directory</title>
<link>http://www.populate.net/Internet_Marketing/Directories/advantages-of-california-web-directory.html</link>
<guid>http://www.populate.net/Internet_Marketing/Directories/advantages-of-california-web-directory.html</guid>
<pubDate>Wed, 08 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[ If you are looking for a particular person or a particular place or a particular business in the state of California, you can always just pick up the phonebook that was distributed to your house and take a look in that phone book for the information that you seek. 

In fact for decades this is how things have been done in informational circles. However, as time moves forward the technology for doing things progresses and of course that in turn makes information available in a much easier manner. This is what has happened with California directory information and it has come about because of the advent of something known as the web directory.

A web directory can mean many different things and this is why a California directory is a much different beast from a web directory that has to deal with certain subject matter. The latter is something that tends to point you to many different websites that have information on that particular subject matter while the former is something that allows you the opportunity to figure out the contact information for whatever it is you are looking for right from the comfort of your own home. 

The web directory version of the California directory has many advantages inherent to its design that make it far better than the phonebook and the convenience of simply being able to look it up quickly on the internet instead of having to flip through a phonebook to find it is one of these major advantages.

Another advantage inherent to using a web directory as your California directory is the fact that you save a lot of paper. There are millions of phonebooks printed up for the state of California and when you think about how thick each phonebook happens to be, you can see just from visual terms how many trees were probably used in the printing process. Then, consider that all of the other states in the union have the same phonebook printing processes and then consider even further that all of the other developed countries have similar things going on and it is quite easy to see that a lot of trees are wasted and the environment is ruined just with these phonebooks. 

Since now is the time that everyone is being environmentally conscious, the web directory concept for a California directory, if it is used by everyone, can actually save the environmental damage and help fight the battle against deforestation. Every little bit helps as the environmentalists are fond of saying.

There are many other advantages that one can gain from this exercise and using the two above as your starting point it should be a relatively simple matter to think of other advantages inherent to this activity. One thing is for certain however and that is that a california directory that is entirely a web directory is a much better way of collecting and distributing information than any other method currently available to the mass market consumer. ]]></description>
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<title>Find New Or Old Friends Online; Its Easy, Quick & Fun!</title>
<link>http://www.populate.net/Internet_Marketing/Directories/find-new-or-old-friends-online%3B-its-easy-quick-and-fun.html</link>
<guid>http://www.populate.net/Internet_Marketing/Directories/find-new-or-old-friends-online%3B-its-easy-quick-and-fun.html</guid>
<pubDate>Mon, 06 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[ The basis for sites like Myspace and facebook was originally made so that friends and family could easily keep in touch with each other. This is great if you already have a friend, but when if you are looking for a new friend, or what if you are looking for a long lost friend you once had? In these cases Myspace and facebook aren't really your best bet, you would have to know either where they are living right now or you would have to search through 10,000 profiles to find them. Its pretty time consuming when you really think about it. 

Of course you can refine your search down to sex, age, orientation but even then you still will have to search through a few thousand profiles to find the right person. Finding a new friend is a little easier because all you would need is age, sex, orientation, hobbies, etc. However, I don't really like to use myspace as a way to find new friends, I just haven't had good luck with it at all.

One thing I have had a lot of luck with is these websites called friend finders. These friends finders range from adult/mature, pen pals, online, offline, activity partners and much more. I have used a few of them to find activity partners for offline activities such as sports or just going out. You would be really surprised to see all the reasons people go on these sites, and all the different kinds of people you can find as well. 

You have to figure there are 6.45 billion people on earth and there was about 729 million people in the year 2004 that had access to the Internet, so that's a lot of people in one "place" all looking for different things and all interested in different things. You have a really good chance of finding your new best friend in all of this! And even if you don't find a best friend, you could find some really interesting people along the way. Its sort of like visiting a new country every day. You won't meet people from just the country you are in (unless you choose to do so).

You can use these for finding new friends, but you can also use other sites for finding old friends, its pretty simple too. All you have to do is enter in a first and last name (which myspace lets you do but it doesn't work), and if you can figure out the age they would be now, that's even better. Once you enter in those small attributes, you will be sent to a page with everyone that has that name and is that age. Chances are there will only be a few people or hey maybe you will get lucky and there will only be one! On a lot of these sites instead of friends name they will ask for something like high school you went to or group/organization you were a member of. 

In this case, when you enter in first name and last name along with high school you are going to hit payload. Seriously if you actually find TWO different people with the same first and last name that went to the same school as you, it's probably a mistake because that's just about impossible.

I did a search once for myself just to see how it worked so I put in my first name, last name, and high school. I found one other person with my name but it was spelled differently, hers was Christie Amberose, so close yet so far away! It was kind of freaky seeing someone with a name so close to mine, but very different at the same time. Make sure you get the spelling right on the names when you are doing a search or you just might find someone you weren't even looking for to begin with! ]]></description>
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<title>Finding Businesses Or Companies Online Is A Snap!</title>
<link>http://www.populate.net/Internet_Marketing/Directories/finding-businesses-or-companies-online-is-a-snap.html</link>
<guid>http://www.populate.net/Internet_Marketing/Directories/finding-businesses-or-companies-online-is-a-snap.html</guid>
<pubDate>Thu, 02 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[ It doesn't matter if you are a professional and have a business online, or you work for someone else doing something else offline, people are always looking for a way to find businesses for all sorts of reasons. Maybe you need to find someone to make business cards for you, or make you need to find a pest control company. Either way, you can easily, quickly and efficiently find these types of sites online by going to business finders. These finders will find any type of business for you as long as it's a business. You can browse within certain categories to make your search even more efficient, for example, by looking under business location, distance, category or even by name.

These finders come in handy whether you know the business name, or not. If you don't know the name or your searching for something within your area, then simply go to "location" or "distance" and it will tell you businesses located in a certain town or business located within a certain distance from you. Or if you know the category such as restaurant or airports, simply click the category name, and pick what you want. Of course if you know the name of the business this is really helpful, but I find when I use these things I actually have no idea the name of the business let alone any other info so I just usually pick category and go from there.

What's nice about these finders is you can refine your search when you go to categories. So lets just for an example pick bakers. Once I pick bakers, then it goes to states, I'll pick Florida then refine it to where you either are or where you think a bakery might be and you are going to be in the vicinity so you want to go to Boca Raton, and then refine your search even more to cake and pie shops, pastry shops, wedding cakes or donuts. Let's pick pastry, now you have gone from 5,000 results down to 30 results and then up above you can pick A-Z if you wanted to.

Obviously it's a lot easier to do than it sounds! Reading "directions" always makes things sound scary, but this is far from scary stuff and it will help you quite quickly. So why don't people just use a phone book like they have for the last few hundred years? Personally for me? I throw my phone books away. They are too heavy, too big, and too inky! My laptop, however, is small, stable, quick and convenient and the Internet (unless you have dial up) moves super fast! Also, the results in your phone book, can't or won't tell you about the guy in Wisconsin who owns a printing business, or the lady in Texas who owns a restaurant you might be going to on vacation! But, the Internet? Has it all. You can search business in your town or half way across the world! ]]></description>
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<title>Effective Directory Submission For SEO</title>
<link>http://www.populate.net/Internet_Marketing/Directories/effective-directory-submission-for-seo.html</link>
<guid>http://www.populate.net/Internet_Marketing/Directories/effective-directory-submission-for-seo.html</guid>
<pubDate>Tue, 26 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[ Submitting your site to web directories for SEO purposes is a tried and true way to increase your link popularity and ranking in the search engines.  There are, however, some pitfalls to avoid.

Here are some tips that will prevent you from "spinning your wheels", as it were, in the directory submission game.

First of all, do not fall for offers to "submit your web site to 10 thousand web directories for only $24.95!".  The submissions are usually done using software, and the majority of them will be rejected by the directory owners for being in the wrong category, not following the guidelines, etc. Even if they happen to actually hand-submit (yeah, right) the directories are always completely useless from an SEO standpoint.

Unless you happen upon a brand new one, they are almost always saturated (meaning they have too many pages of listings that the search engines will never crawl deep enough to find). 

In most cases the directories will only be around for a short period of time.  They usually stick around just long enough for the owner to get tired of rummaging through the submissions before realizing that there is very little profit from it, then letting the domain expire.  

Besides the above reasons, the search engines do not favor these directories at all, and even if they somehow manage to find your link among the numbers it will not count for much.

Now that you know what to avoid, here are some tips for finding quality directories.  First, we will talk about the "elite" directories that everyone knows about- The Yahoo! Directory, The Open Directory Project (Dmoz.org) and Best Of The Web (BOTW.org).  These directories are well known, and the search engines love them for sure.  These are the three directories any serious webmaster needs to have a listing in. 

The only one of the three above mentioned that is not a "pay-per-inclusion" directory is the Open Directory Project.  The problem with the ODP, however, is it's lack of reliability.  It is run by volunteers who receive no compensation for the work they do.  Therefore, many of the thousands of categories have no volunteers, and because of the lack of compensation many of the volunteers often neglect the project or are just plain lackadaisical about it altogether.  Needless to say, getting a listing in the ODP is a crap shoot.  But it is definitely worth a try, as many of the search engines put a measure of trust in sites listed in the ODP.

The Yahoo! Directory is another one that grabs Google's attention for sure, some believe more so than the ODP.  A listing in the Yahoo! directory is quite expensive, however.  At the time of this writing it will set you back $300 yearly.  But if you are serious about your site, it is worth the investment.

Last but not least, we have the Best Of The Web directory.  This is an old directory (started in 1994) with lots of high quality inbound links, and is a favorite of many SEO enthusiasts.  At the time of this writing, there is a one-time review and inclusion fee of $240.  Another great investment.

Now that we are familiar with some of the top general web directories, let's talk about finding other great directories.  There are plenty of lists out there, just Google "list of directories".  But before spending any money for inclusion fees, here are some things to look for.

First of all, the age of the directory should be looked into.  You can usually obtain this information by finding out when the domain was first registered.  The older the better in this case.  

Next, make sure the directory has plenty of quality inbound links from other authority sites, because some of this "link juice" will be passed on to your site.  Lastly, make sure the directory is "SEO friendly".

If the link to your site utilizes a tracking URL, the link may not be counted by the engines.  Also, watch out for saturated directories and ones that use the "nofollow" attribute.

These same principals apply to niche directories.  Niche directories are great because they are on-topic, and there are a lot of authority niche directories out there.  To find these directories within your web sites niche, Google your keywords and put "directory" after it. ]]></description>
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