Wedding SEO and Internet Marketing Blog

When you are doing search engine optimization, it is important to use an analytics program.  An analytics program helps you track all of the statistics in one program.  When you have this installed, you can see which keywords are bringing you the most traffic.  You can also see which keywords are converting the best for you.  Once you see which keywords you are ranking high for, you can concentrate on getting to the top of the search engine rankings for those keywords.  Also, you can get yourself ranked in other keywords and check if you are getting any traffic from those.

Another factor to keep an eye on is when Google or any of the other search engine’s algorithm changes.  Google uses a very complex algorithm to rank websites for keywords.  An algorithm, by definition, is a complex sequence of steps used to solve an equation.  There may have been a time when you were wondering why your website dropped from the first page of Google to the fifth.  Other times the algorithm may have liked your website and you may got a major boost in the ranking of your website.  Instead of making a knee-jerk reaction and drastically making changes to your website, it is better to take some time to try to find out exactly why those other pages were moved ahead of you.  Take some time to browse all of the websites on the first page of Google for your keyword and determine what all of those pages have in common.  Also check out what those pages have that your website does not.

Remember that just because your site dropped in the search engine results pages, it is not the end of the world.  If you are building a solid business, you should have been making repeat customers and the customers you are targeting should already know about your services.  If your entire business can be taken out by a simple change in Google’s algorithm, then you need to evaluate how you are running your business.  If another company can completely whipe out all of the profit you are making from your business, then you really do not have a long-term business.  The search results should be a strong component of your business, but if you allow it to be your entire business, you can run into problems.

One way you can combat the algorithm changes is by having many websites that lead to the services offered on your website.  If you have three or four websites that point to your main website which offers the services and products for your website.  If you offer products for weddings, use a few different domains for different wedding gifts, wedding favors, etc.  This is only necessary if your business completely relies on the search engines to do business.  If you have other avenues of revenue, then you will have time to figure out exactly what changed in the algorithm.  Many times there are drastic changes in the search results early on, but after time when everything settles down it is very common for everything to go back to a similar place to where it was to begin with.

Many times, social events can effect your business in Google.  You need to be aware of popular items or services that your business can offer.  If there is a new craze for a certain wedding favor that many couples are using, it is important to find out about it as soon as possible.  If you are able to do this, you will have little competition on Google for these keywords.  Doing this will give you a boost in sales for a period of time.  Sometimes it can be a short-term boost, other times it can be a lasting source of income.  If you do research on your keyword and industry on a regular basis, it will keep you ahead of all of the other businesses you are competing against.  Here are some FREE tools to stay ahead of the competition.

• Google Hot Trends: Displays the Top 100 Searches of the Past Hour.   A great tool for marketers.
• Google Alerts: Get notified in real time by email regarding news, web, blog, comprehensive, video and group content relative to your keyword of choice.

So exactly how can I apply these tools to my Wedding Business?  Great Question!!  Let me explain this to you.  There are two types of back links Off-Topic Links and On-Topic Links.  An Off-Topic link is a link coming from Site A to Site B where the two sites are unrelated.  An On-Topic Link is where Site A is linking to Site B, and both sites share common keywords like  “Atlanta” and “Wedding” somewhere within the content.  If you were a wedding service provider in Atlanta, you would benefit MUCH more by having a On-Topic backlink with your keywords like mentioned in scenario 2.  Google Alerts will notify you the moment a new blog is posted with your keywords included in the content.  It is then your job to click on the page, add a relevant comment to the blog post, and include an Anchor Text with your keywords. i.e. “Atlanta Wedding Photographer”  Do this 6-10 times per day, and you will start to see your site climbing the search engines rather quickly.

If you are trying to build a long-term business online, it is important to factor all of this information into your search engine optimization.  SEO gets visitors to your website from Google, but it does not build a long-term business for you.  Making lasting relationships with the visitors to your website is what makes a long-term business.

Many people doing search engine optimization often overestimate the value of keyword density.  Sure you want to get your keywords in the articles, but after you get them in there a couple times, that is enough.  Do not put the keywords in there to the point that your article sounds like spam.

Also, if you do not focus on using your exact phrase, it opens up your website to getting more traffic from long-tail keywords.  If you do not remember, long-tail keywords are keywords that contain multiple words that are more specific to the exact kind of search.  Instead of the keyword being “wedding djs,” a long-tail keyword would have the phrase “wedding djs in maryland.”  Since many people write in the same manner, if you just write your content exactly how it comes to mind, you are very likely to come up with some great long-tail keywords naturally.  Another advantage of not forcing the keywords into your site is this way your readers are more likely to return to your site because of the quality content.  It also makes it more likely that other websites will link to your site.

Now would you want to receive a birthday card that looked like this?

This was the perfect example of what NOT to do when writing for search engines.  Some people cram their keywords into their articles to many times that is does not even make sense.  This can cause some serious problems.  Articles like these can be flagged as spam and be taken completely off of the search engine results pages.

Your writing style is another way you can rank well in the search engine results pages.  Mix up your keywords phrase in order to get ranked in many different long-tail keywords.  Instead of saying “djs in Maryland” a whole bunch of times, switch it up and use other phrases, such as “Maryland djs.”  If your writing sounds like it was done by a human instead of a robot, it will help you with your rankings.  The search engines are looking for high-quality information to put at the top of their rankings.  What you want to do is make your article read like a newspaper, opposed to something written strictly for SEO.  Google is pretty smart when it comes to identifying unique, quality content.

It is very common to underestimate the power of linking out to other sites.  This does not mean providing links only to sites that also link to yours.  This is called a link exchange and if the search engines become aware of this, your site can be dropped in the rankings.  Try to put quality links on your page where they fit in naturally.  This will improve the quality of your site and can also increase the page rank.  Having broken links on your page can also hurt your page.  Is is a real turn off to visitors and can cause them to leave your site immediately.  Also, people are very unlikely to bookmark your site if it is full of broken links.  Additional to that, when you submit your site to directories to build links, your site may not be approved for the directory submission if it has broken links.  They will sometimes run a program that views your site and checks all of the links to make sure they are not broken.  You do not want your directory submissions to fail, because backlinks are possibly the most important aspect of building the seo for your website.

Many times when a website is built it can immediately get ranked in Google, sometimes even ranked on the first page.  Then after a week or so, the pages will disappear from these rankings.  This is often referred to as the “Google Sandbox.” If you keep putting fresh, unique content on your website, you will climb out of this so-called sandbox within a week or two.  You can compare the Google Sandbox to a probationary period for your website.  After a week or two passes with Google’s spiders crawling through your site, there will be no problem getting your high spot in the search engines rankings back.

Remember, search engine optimization is very important, but if you are sacrificing the quality of your content in order to optimize it more, then you are not doing a service for your website.  You are depriving your business of return customers and your content can look like spam and get lost in the Google rankings.

As we have discussed before, Squidoo is a very powerful tool when it comes to search engine optimization.  If you create a Squidoo lens, it gains immediate recognition in the search engine rankings, so it brings a great deal of traffic to your website if optimized properly.  Also, it provides a quality backlinks to your main website.  Many people do not even have a website and use Squidoo to generate a full-time income.  In the wedding industry, this is not recommended, but it is definitely a great way to give your traffic and conversions to your website a major boost.

Let’s go over some of the benefits of creating a Squidoo lens.  First of all, a lens is indexed by Google faster than a regular website you create.  Many times they are indexed immediately upon creation.  Also, Squidoo is a simple and free way to get a presence on the internet.  Even if you are not experienced at all on the internet you can have a lens up in under an hour.  Many people that are new to advertising on the internet are on a limited budget, so this is very helpful.  When you compare Squidoo to its competitors, such as HubPages and WordPress, there is little regulation on your site.  Squidoo has no problem with you putting affiliate links on your website.  This does not mean to create a really spammy Squidoo that is packed with no information, but has affiliate links all over it.  If you do this, there is a small possibility your lens can be taken down.  Not only that, your page will not rank well in the search engines if there is no quality content enriched with keywords, and your site is just filled with hoplinks to affiliate products.

When you begin to make your lens, after you log in and click create lens, you will be taken to a screen that asks you what kind of lens you want to make.  Click on the options that says “do my own thing.”  This gives you freedom to add whatever modules you want to your lens.  After this, you will be asked to select a title.  You need to use your keyword in your title.  If it makes sense, you can simply use the keyword as your title.  If the title is taken you can simply add a number to the end of the title and it will not affect your search engine rankings.  For instance, you could make your title “Top 10 Wedding Favors 1.”  This will make your url http://www.squidoo.com/top-10-wedding-favors-1.  If you are having trouble selecting a keyword, feel free to consult my previous blog post about selecting keywords.

Before you make your lens, it is a good idea to check out the Top 100 lenses.  By doing this you will get a good idea of what it takes to create a high-quality lens that enjoys a great deal of traffic.  No need to try to figure this out yourself, when the blueprint has been drawn for you by the top Squidoo marketers.

Squidoo will ask you if you want to keep the money you earn from your lens or donate it to charity.  This is only referring to the Adsense earnings from your page.  Adsense is the text ads placed on your website by Google.  You will probably not generate much revenue from this, because this is not our main objective, so choose whichever option you like.

After this, you need to create a bio for yourself which includes a link to your main website.  A link will be on each Squidoo you create that takes people to your bio, so put a little bit of time into it, because it will getting a good amount of views.  You can make this bio default for each lens or create a special bio for each lens.  If you have the time, I recommend creating a unique bio for each lens.

The first thing you create in the lens is the introduction.  This is the most important part of your lens.  This is where you need to capture the attention of your reader.  This module is what gets your reader to continue.  For this part you can write a short review of your product or service, or you can tell a story to gain interest.  When you create your lens, make sure to use 4-5 modules.  You want to include a lot of text.  Also, add a module that contains something humorous or entertaining.  You can use articles you have already written or other people’s articles from ezine.  Just make sure to credit the author.

After this, you can take it from there.  Use all of the seo techniques you have read previously in the blog and you can create a top Squidoo lens.

We all know that with proper search engine optimization, we can climb the rankings of Google and get traffic to our website.  We do this by keeping our page updated with fresh content and building quality backlinks that point back to our website.  However, just getting traffic to the website is not the end of the battle.  Once we get visitors to the website, we need to be able to dictate where they go and what they do once they get on the site.  This can be done with effective copywriting.

The most important aspect of copywriting is to first grab the attention of the reader.  You can do this with an attention-grabbing headline.

DON’T RUIN YOUR WEDDING DAY BY MAKING THIS SIMPLE MISTAKE!

This can be done by asking them a question or making an interesting or even shocking statement.  Whether or not the person reads the rest of your website is based upon how interesting your headline was.  If you choose the route of making an unbelievable or controversial claim to grab their attention, then the first part of your article should be proof for your claim.  You can use written proof or a picture.  Also, to keep your website search engine optimized, it is also important to put your keywords in the title, if possible, but you already knew that, right?  Also, people love statistics.  If you are able to feed them some statistical evidence regarding the success of your product, that will help out a great deal.

When you get to the body of the article, you want to keep your sentences as short and concise as possible.  If your sentences read easily and are easily understood, there is a much greater chance that your reader will continue reading.  If there is any part of the article that could cause someone to be confused, either clear up that part of the article or take it out completely.  If you cause your reader to be confused, they will most likely leave your website.

Another good method to get your viewers to continue reading your website is to tell an interesting story.  Stories are likely to draw emotional reactions from your readers and get them to trust you more.  Also, it is easy to transition from a story to your sales pitch.  If you are unable to tell a story, you can instead use amazing facts.  http://www.thisistrue.com is a great website on the Internet to find unbelievable facts that will suck in your reader.  One of the best ways to go about copy writing is to draw them in with an entertaining story and them transition into some interesting facts.  After you give them the interesting facts, you can then move into your sales pitch or tell them a little bit about what you have to offer them.

While you are writing the article, try to be aware of any kind of question or concern that could come up for the reader.  If you are able to anticipate these questions, it will go a long way in keeping the reader glued to your content.  It helps avoid any confusion that might come up for the reader.  Also, when you are telling the reader about your product or service, make sure to stress how important the information is.  If you can make them believe that the product you are offering is a life-changing product, they will be more likely to want more information about it, which leads to them purchasing your product.

Try not to make your sales copy too formal.  People like articles that are written in a personal manner.  Keep it very conversational.  Address your reader as “you” as often as you can.  Also statements such as, “I was devastated by the terrible services provided by my wedding DJ and I’m sure you would feel just as awful if you were in my position.”

Add some sub-headlines to your page.  You want these to be just as catchy as your headline.  When you add sub-headlines to your page, people will at least scan down the page and check them out.  Many of the people that do this are the same people that would have simply left your page if you had just plain text all the way down the page.  People do not take well to a lot of reading, it needs to be broken up for them.  Pictures and videos will also keep your reader captivated for the duration of your website.

There are many search engine optimization businesses on the internet.  Many of them make false claims, by guaranteeing that they will take your website to number one in the search engine results pages.  When an seo firm promises that they can take your site to number one in the search engines without seeing any information from your site, that should go up as a red flag.  There are some niches where it is virtually impossible to get to number one in the search results.  Also, ask the companies when you can expect to start seeing results from their seo campaign.  SEO campaigns do not get immediate results.  Many of them take as long as 3-4 months before you can expect to start seeing results from their work.  So be skeptical if the seo firm says that you will begin seeing results immediately.  Maybe a few visitors will start trickling in to your website, but there will not be any substantial gains in traffic for at least a few weeks.  Ask the company what type of methods they plan on using while improving the seo of your site.  A great seo firm will have an array of methods, maybe even too many to implement on just your campaign.  You need to be able to see if your seo campaign is working out.  The company should provide some kind of tracking information.  Many of the companies provide a weekly report.  There should be some way provided to see exactly how well the seo campaign is panning out for your business.  Make sure to be familiar with the fees that are implemented by the company.  They should be able to provide you with a rate sheet, which will inform you about any expenses you may encounter while using their service.

Many of these seo firms provide the basic tasks that you and I can easily do ourselves.  Sure, they may know some advanced techniques that will help get your site indexed.  However, at the end of the day, your search engine ranking page results really hinges on whether or not your site has quality, keyword-enriched content.  Many of these businesses are focused on new website owners that are having trouble getting traffic to the website.  These people are desperate and will do anything in order to get some visitors to their websites.

With the amount of information available on the internet, I recommend doing your own seo.  Sure you can always outsource a few simple tasks to other people, but there is plenty information available on the internet to get a good grasp of what needs to be done in order to optimieze your website for the search engines.  Do not  forget, that content is king.  These seo firms do not have a magic wand that they simply wave, resulting in your page climbing to the top of the search engines.  In order to help your website climb the search engines, these firms will have to put in a great amount of work, just as it would be if you were doing the seo work for your website for yourself.  Really, it comes down to a simple question.  Is it worth saving your time in order to have someone else do the seo work necessary to make your business successful.  If the time you would be spending on seo can be better spent doing other more useful tasks that need to be done for your company, then by all means hire an seo firm.

One of the key benefits of an seo firm is the tweaks that they will be able to make on the actual website layout.  Not only are they supposed to get you to the top of Google, they are supposed to help you point your traffic in the right direction once it gets there.  If you want visitors to check out your rates for your wedding DJ service, they should be able to make adjustments to the website’s layout in order to get the people going where you want them to.  This makes it very important to find an seo firm that is very familar with web design.  When asking the seo firm what they provide for you, it is important to see if they discuss anything changing the layout of your site in order to create more conversions.  This is one of the main benefits of a great seo firm.

When you create your own blog with WordPress, there is usually an icon on your page that says “RSS” on the page somewhere.  This is an abbreviation for really simple syndicate.  People can subscribe to your RSS feed.  When they do, they get a feed each time you update your page.  This is a great way to keep your customers or readers updated to what is going on with your business.  If you offer specials each week, this is a great way to get them to your customers.

There are a lot of things you can do with your RSS feed.  You can submit your feed to RSS directories.  This way, each time your site is updated, it is automatically submitted to directories, creating quality backlinks.  You can also use your RSS feed to create fresh content at your Squidoo pages.  In Squidoo, there is a module where you can add an RSS feed to your lens.  You do this and put in the web address of your feed.  Then once a day, it automatically checks your RSS feed to see if there is any fresh content.  If there is, it automatically puts the title of the new articles on your Squidoo page.  This is a great way to get fresh content to your page on a daily basis.  This fresh content helps keep your Squidoo high in the search engines.

When building links, there are DoFollow and NoFollow links.  A DoFollow link is a link that a search engine will acknowledge as a link back to your site.  A NoFollow is a link that the search engines will disregard.  DoFollow links are great for ranking in search engines and increasing your page rank, while NoFollow, not so much.  If you are worried about finding DoFollow links, do not worry, there are many lists available on the internet which list DoFollow pages that allow you to submit links.

There is a lot of technical jargon out there involving search engine optimization.  Nofollow links, dofollow links, it can get very confusing.  If you are a beginner and just want to keep it simple, just use the top social bookmarking sites.  Here is a list of them:

• Slashdot
• Digg
• Del.icio.us
• StumbleUpon
• Reddit
• Technorati
• Propeller
• Connotea
• Current
• Mixx
• MyBlogLog
• Mister Wong
• NowPublic
• BlinkList
• Newsvine
• Ma.gnolia
• Backflip
• BibSonomy
• Kirtsy
• Searchles
• coRank
• LinkaGoGo
• Clip Clip
• Associated Content
• Furl
• Yahoo My Web
• Y!buxx
• Spurl
• Rawsugar
• Social Marker
• Kaboodle
• Newsvine
• Twine
• Clipmarks
• DZone
• Faves
• Blanklist
• Diigo
• Simpy
• BlogMarks

If you can find the time to submit your new articles to these social bookmarks daily, your page will be climbing the search engines at a very quick rate.  Also, by using these dofollow social bookmarks, it will help to get your site indexed within a matter of days.

Doing all of these social bookmarks can be a very monotonous job.  You can do all of them within a matter of thirty minutes, once you get all of your accounts created, but this is time that can be better spent of on more important aspects of your business.  I have some advice for you, if you do not feel like social bookmarking every single day.  If you have a teenage child or nephew, outsource the job to them.  Just have them do about 100 social bookmarks a week and give them $10-$20, if you can afford it.  It might not seem like much, but to a kid it is a good amount of money.  It will fund their weekend trip to the movies or gas money to go to the mall.  Plus, it might be their first job.  It can be very beneficial to all parties.  Or if you do not have anyone like that you can outsource to, there are many cheap services online where you can purchase social bookmarking and directory submission packages.  These usually have reasonable rates.  Many of the outsourcing options are from foreign countries where the U.S. Dollar pulls more weight, so this enables you to get a good bit of work done for a small amount of cash.

At this day and age search engines are the ruler of the internet.  Many people are trying to build their websites from scratch, and are finding the task to be quite unbearable.  For a new internet marketer, it can be overwhelming when attempting to build a brand new website.  Even for a more experienced and savvy internetmarketer, building a website from the ground up can be a very difficult and troublesome experience.  There is something called Open Source Content Management Systems or CMS.  These are very user-friendly and reasonably priced website development programs.  When using a CMS, it is very easy for even a beginner, with little or not web design skills, to get a formidable website up and running in a very short amount of time.  These websites that are built are not just generic websites.  There are many add-ons and plug-ins you can use to make your website unique.  For users of these open source content management systems, if there is a question, then there is a large community of people online that all work together to get their questions answered.  Most of these CMS’s have been around for several years.  This means, at this point, they have made their way through all of the bugs and for the most part these programs are pretty bug-free.  Most problems are figured out early on in the development.

Two of the  most common Open Source Content Management Systems are Joomla and Drupal. Both are free and easily installed with almost all hosting plans.  Since both of these are so widely used, there is a great deal of support and information available online regarding them.  There are many pre-made design themes for both of these programs, so finding a unique, personal design for your website is very simple.  If you are looking for a cost-effective, simple way to get yourself a web presence, then an Open Source CMS is a very viable option.

Once you get these programs up and running, they provide very comprehensive statstical tracking of the visitors to your website.  Also, if you want to keep your website in the blog format, they make it very easy to add new posts every single day, with just a few clicks.  Many of their pre-made layouts are very search engine optimized, which makes it much easier to climb the search engine results pages than if you designed your own website from scratch.  With each post you make to your blog, there is a feature that enables you to automatically establish your keywords.  If you use these keywords a few times within your post, you will be a player in the search engines within a matter of days.  If you are looking to make income with Adsense on your website, these programs make it easy for users to place Adsense blocks anywhere on their websites.  Adsense is the small text ads that Google places on your website.  When a visitor to your website clicks on these advertisements, you are paid a commission.  These ads are automatically relevant to the content on your website.

Let’s take a closer look at Drupal.  This system provides a great deal of flexibility to its users.  Contrary to other systems, it is easy to alter templates and navigation bars.  Originally, Drupal was made as a tool for making community sites.  You can use it to build a standard website, but it is more practical for a blog or news site.  Also, Drupal gives you the option to create an RSS feed.  An RSS feed is a feed of data that is sent to all of its subscribers each time your blog is updated.  These are very helpful when it comes to keeping your visitors to your website updated.

Many people feel that Open Source Content Management Systems are not appropriate to use for their online business.  People are fearful that their website will look cheap or generic and not professional.  The fact is, if you are able to become experienced with using the user interfaces provided, then you can make a unique professional looking design for your website.  Also, for many of the layouts, there is a place at the bottom where visitors to the site can leave commments or feedback on the website.  These systems are very helpful for any new business owner with not much web design experience, looking to build a new website.

When you first start your online business, you should have a website.  One of the first important things to add to your web site is an analytics program.  The one I use is Google Analytics.  It is free and easy to install.  An analytics program provides you with all kind of stats and information regarding the traffic to your website.

Also, it is a good idea to do some page optimization.  Page optimization is making sure that your page is very recognizable to the search engines.  Make sure you use your keywords in your page titles.  Put the more important keywords at the beginning.  It is not necessary to put your company name at the top of every page, unless you are really trying to brand yourself.  It is helpful to try to keep your site titles short.  When listing your keywords, sometimes it can be more effective to not put commas between all of them.  This allows your site to pick up on some long-tail keywords and other keyword variations.

Many times when building a new website, people focus entirely on strictly how the page is ranking on the search engine results pages.  While this is very important, there are other important factors to consider, such as traffic.  It does not matter if your website is ranked very highly for certain keywords, if that does not results in traffic to your website.  Also it is important to remember the ultimate goal of the website.  If you are not getting much traffic, but it is getting a lot of sales for your site, then your goals are still being accomplished.

Here are some other good seo tips for your website.  When you are writing, choose your keywords before you write, instead of just picking some keywords that appear frequently in your article.  This way you get the keywords you want in your articles, not just words that happened to appear in your articles frequently.  Also, this enables you to get the right amount of usage of your keywords in the article.  Anything more than 5% will look awkward.  It is also very important that your content is unique.  Make sure to write something that people will actually enjoy reading and find useful.  This way the people that do go to your site will bookmark it and come back for more information.  Adding new content is very important as well.  You are more likely to get return visitors to your site if you provide fresh content daily or at least weekly.  This creates return business as well.  You are not just getting hits to your website, you are also building a relationship with your viewers.  Putting links to relevant web pages also helps.  Do this even if you are linking to your competition.  In turn, ask them if they can include some links to your website.  This will help you get very targeted traffic.  Your navigation bar is a very important part of your website.  If you can get a few of your keywords in the navigation bar without them looking awkward, it can be very beneficial to your website.  Instead of it just saying “about” in the navigation bar, you can change it to “about the wedding planner.”

When you start doing SEO work on your website, set long-term and short-term goals.  Sure you should have goals that include how many unique hits you get to your website per day, but do not limit your goals strictly to unique hits.  Set goals regarding how many sells and conversions you get from your website based on those hits.  Set goals on the conversion rate of your site.  Also, set goals on how many clicks you get on certain outbound links.  If you are able to dictate what your visitors do after they get to your site, you will be able to have a much more profitable online business.  You want unique hits to your website or else you will not get any sales or potential customers to your website, but remember, the unique hits do not make you any money alone.  You have to get the viewers to do what you want in order to get some profit from their visit.

SEO contains some very complex strategies, but when you are just starting out focus on creating good content as described above and start with small, short-term goals.  As your site builds and your content grows, your unique hits will naturally increase, so make sure you pay special attention to what your traffic does after it gets to your site.

There are thousands of Web page directories on the internet. A link directory is a large website with links broken down by specific categories. Most of these directories provide you a link to include your website in the category of your choice for FREE or for a paid placement. Obviously, the FREE sounds better, but sometimes a paid listing can add much more value to your rankings. Here are a list of my 10 favorite (important) Paid directories that you should have your website listed on:

1. http://dir.yahoo.com
2. http://botw.org
3. http://www.business.com
4. http://www.joeant.com
5. http://www.wowdirectory.com
6. http://www.gimpsy.com
7. http://www.site-sift.com
8. http://uncover.com
9. http://sbd.bcentral.com
10. http://www.skaffe.com

The reason I listed Yahoo first is because it is by far the largest and most visited directory on the web. Yahoo offers free submissions for noncommercial categories and an annual subscription of $299 for all other categories. Although inclusion is not always guaranteed even if you pay, most of the time everyday sites are approved with-in 7 days. In order to stay listed, you must continue to pay $299 per year.

The Best of the Web directory was listed second, because it has been around 1994, and was one of the first directories on the Web. They offer free category sponsorship for 60 days and then provide you options to get listed in their directory for a fee. To get your website reviewed and listed on BOTW, you have the choice of paying a onetime fee of $239.95 or a annual rate of $79.95.

The Monster of all Directories is “The Open Directory Project”, also known as DMOZ. Located at www.dmoz.org, DMOZ is one of the most respected directories on the Web. You can submit your site for FREE into any of their categories, however the human editors are extremely selective in who they accept. They look at things like domain age, links, content, theme, keywords, and so many other variables. There have even been rumors that the editors receive hundreds of dollars in bribes daily, just to get a website into their directory. That is how important the DMOZ directory is.

So to summarize, focus on the directories that have been around for at least 5 years, possess a large number of backlinks, and have a high Google PageRank.

Alright, it seems you have decided to build a website to help promote your business. It is the year 2009, and almost all businesses should have a presence on the internet. The first thing you need to do is pick the URL. The URL is the address that people will have to type in to get to your site, you know www.yourwebsite.com. When choosing the name of the website, it is important to make the title relevant to your product or service. If people are going to be searching Google with the word “wedding” to find your site, then it would be a good idea to have wedding in your URL. This gives you a head start on getting your website to the top of the search engines. If you already have an established website without your keyword in it, it is not the end of the world. This is just one of many variables that Google considers while indexing their pages.

Now that you have selected a URL, it is time to figure out how you are going to add content to the site. A good idea would be to use WordPress. There are many tutorials online that show how to get started with WordPress. Most of the time, you can log into your CPanel and there is one click installation. If you have trouble, you can visit www.wordpress.org to have your questions answered. There are forums where you can post questions and get them answered. The WordPress community is very responsive. I talked more about this one of my previous posts: WordPress Blog – Quick and Easy to set-up – More qualified brides to your site.

Once you have WordPress installed, the next thing you need to do is select a layout for your blog. These are also referred to as themes. You can search for them on the WordPress homepage. I recommend, when searching, that you look for themes that are search engine optimized. These themes will automatically make your site more compatible with Google and allow you to rank higher in the search engines than you normally would. Next, you will need to add a few plug-ins to your site. These are also found on the WordPress website. The most important  plug-in is called the All-In-One SEO Pack. This plug-in further optimizes your site for the search engines.

You now have chosen your URL and layout, and have added an important SEO plug-in, so now it is time to begin adding content to your blog. When writing your articles, it is important to keep some things in mind. Remember, we are targeting keywords with our blog that are relevant to the service you are providing. If you have a wedding dj service in Dallas, Texas, then you should target keywords such as “wedding dj service Dallas Texas.” It is good to have your keywords in the title of your article. Also, you need to use them at least 1-2 time within in the article. This helps you get your article listed in the search engines for the keywords you are targeting. You can use as many keywords as you want.

Another good plug-in is the WordPress.com Stats plug-in. It keeps very detailed statistics of where your traffic is coming from. It tells you if your traffic came from search engines. If it did, then it tells you exactly what keywords were searched in order to get to your blog. Additionally, it tells you what page your visitors were on before they got to your site. This is very valuable information that enables you to find out which keywords are working best for you. Although blog stats is good, you would also benefit from having a Google Analytics account as well.

It is a good idea to add fresh content to your blog at least one or two times a week. Google takes notice of this and so do the regular visitors to your site. People are more likely to return to your site if they know there will be fresh information for them to take in during their next visit. Another way to improve your blog is by adding pictures and video. WordPress makes it very easy to add pictures and videos. When making a new post for your blog, the option to add pictures and video is right on the screen, just a click away. Also, the search engines favor websites with pictures and video, opposed to ones with just text. Visitors to your site are more likely to stick around when they see the videos and pictures.

A WordPress blog is a nice, simple way to get started. Do not confuse it for a novice way of going about your business, though. Some of the most famous blogs on the internet use WordPress. It is very simple, but it has the capabilities to make a very attractive, clean blog.  This blog that you are reading is a simple WordPress blog.