Web MarketingLesson.com

by Robert Seberger

Have you been spending way too much time on the Internet looking for proven strategies to successfully submit your website to Yahoo? Well my friend you can take a nice long deep breath and relax because you have just found the answer.

I am going to quickly take you step by step through the submission process and teach you strategies that no one else knows! Many websites have articles that seem to know what they are talking about but I assure you most still don't have a clue!

Yahoo was the first search service on the Internet and remains today the number one in terms of searches and hits per day. A recent analysis of over 35 million unique daily visitors to over 100,000 websites showed 55.81% of search engine referrals came from Yahoo (Alta Vista came second with 11.18% and Excite third with 9.66%).

A good listing in Yahoo will often outperform all the remaining search engines and directories put together. This is why you should start with your Yahoo listing and devote quality time to it.

There are many companies out there that will promise you a top listing on Yahoo if you pay them to use their automated submission service or purchase their software. 

Your Yahoo listing is important enough that you will want to do it by hand, personally, rather than leave it up to a piece of software. Besides, Yahoo categories change constantly and these services will not get you listed in the right category.

There are also many so called "experts" who will tell you if you pay them $200 to $1,000 they will personally optimize your website, manually submit your site to Yahoo, and can almost guarantee you top listing! Don't believe them and don't waste your money!

There are companies I personally know of that will get you listed "somewhere" on Yahoo but I assure you that getting listed on Yahoo is not difficult and you will receive better results when you follow my simple step by step strategy in this article.

What you need to know about Yahoo is that it is not a search engine but a directory. The listings are placed in the directory by human category editors who visit your website and decide whether or not it is acceptable. This makes it crucial to have your site ready, and appealing. 

When you submit all of your information to Yahoo make sure that you fill out their submission forms correctly and EXACTLY the way you want it. What I mean is that you must make sure that if you want certain words capitalized, then they must be capitalized on the Yahoo Submission Form.

Let's begin...

Step 1: Inspect your ALL of your Web pages!

Before you even consider submitting to Yahoo, go to your website and look EVERYTHING over and ask yourself the following questions:

1. Is my page finished? Incomplete or Under Construction pages will not be listed. If your site is finished, make sure all Under Construction Graphics are removed.

2. Does my site offer quality, useful, original content? Content is the key with Yahoo. Yahoo does not consider themselves 'judges' but instead providers of useful resources. The better your content, the better chance you have of being listed. You can increase your content by providing new high quality articles and advice, provide free software downloads, or offer special online services and resources.

3. Does my site look nice? Although good design is usually not a requirement, it does help. The better your site looks, the better the directory will feel about adding it. You don't want your web pages to be difficult to read by using improper color combinations such as a black background with dark blue colored fonts, and you don't want you site to look amateurish.

4. Does my site load quickly? Test your site on 28.8 and 56k modems. Make sure all of your web page's load within 10-20 seconds. If you provide rich content (Flash), give users a smaller bandwidth option. A quick way to increase your loading speed is reduce the size of your graphics or the number of graphics you have on each web page.

5. Are any of my links or graphics broken? No directory, especially Yahoo, will list your site if it has ANY broken links or graphics, regardless of the quality of it's content.

6. Do I use as many of my Keywords in my sites hyperlinks as possible? You want to make sure your hyperlinks use the same keywords that you will use in your Title, Description, and URL because it will significantly increase your relevancy. Instead of using "Articles" as a hyperlink, you can use your keyword such as "Marketing Tactics".

7. Is my site easy to navigate? Make sure your websites navigational interface (hyperlinks to your other web pages) is clear and concise, without a lot of distracting elements.

8. Is my site usable by a wide audience? There have been a lot of great advances in the world of web development, but many of those fall flat when it comes to earlier browsers. Make sure your web pages work well on either Explorer or Netscape Browser's.

If you answered Yes to all of these questions then half the battle is over! Now you can go to Step 2.

If you answered No, you will most likely not get indexed! You have to realize that Yahoo has human editors who will look at EVERY web page on your site. They have absolutely no obligation and even reserve the right not to list your Website! 

So I say again, don't submit your site to Yahoo until it is completely ready and you can answer Yes to all of the above questions.

If you need help in optimizing your web pages then take a look at the Site Starter program ebook at http://www.WebXSuccess.Com. This ebook will teach you how to quickly and easily optimize your web pages and make them more effective.

Step 2: Choose Two Categories on Yahoo!

Yahoo will allow only your homepage to be listed in two separate categories. What this means is that you need to ensure that you pick the two best categories that:

* Best matches your website, products, and services.

* Appears closer to the top in a series of search results because when someone does a search on Yahoo, Yahoo returns categories first, and then categories with a few major sites in them next.

* Has the least amount of competitors.

Use My Proven Strategy!

Go to www.Yahoo.com yourself and conduct searches for your Top 5 Competitors. Type in their company names or their URLs. You will find that most of them are listed in only two categories.

Open up your favorite Word Processor and then "Cut" the resulting category URLs from the Yahoo web page and "Paste" them into your Word Processor for later use. Save this File in your Documents titled "YAHOO SUBMISSIONS".

Next, answer these questions:

1. What categories are my competitors listed under? 2. How many total results are listed? 3. What keywords are each of my competitors using in their Title and Description?

Now do a keyword search under each of your Top 3-4 keywords, or keyword combinations, that you expect your prospects/customers will search on, and best describes your website, products, and services.

Once again, Cut and Paste the resulting category URLs into the same "YAHOO SUBMISSIONS" Document that you created for later use.

Answer the questions again:

1. What categories are my competitors listed under? 2. How many total results are listed? 3. What keywords are each of my competitors using?

Take a look at all of your resulting categories and decide if your prospect will spot a category and click on it first, or if they will scroll down and look for a site that is listed in a category below. Put all of your answers into your "YAHOO SUBMISSIONS" Document.

Based on all of the answers, choose the Two Categories where you would like your Website listed and highlight these in BOLD.

The Yahoo Category Editor will most likely put you in the category with other Websites or business like yours. For instance, though you might really want to be in the 'teachers category' because you sell to teachers, you will end up in the textbooks category if that's what you make. But you will definitely want to choose which Two Categories you want to be put into yourself and submit these to Yahoo.

Note: If you have a local business or if your site is related to a local city or country, it's a good strategy to choose one of your Categories to be in Yahoo's Regional Section. Submit to the Regional Section first at: http://dir.yahoo.com/Regional/. Find your country or city and submit into the appropriate category there.

These directories are much smaller, and usually you can get listed there much faster than the main directory.

Do NOT submit your site to Yahoo's regional category if it has nothing to do with the region.

If you don't get listed in the regional category within a month, reevaluate your site. If you get listed, you'll have more leverage to get into the main directory. Once you have a listing, you can resubmit elsewhere, and inform them that your site/company has a listing in a regional category.

Step 3: Re-examine your Keywords!

Look again at what keywords your competitors are using and decide if they are similar to your keywords or better.

Yahoo, like most engines, indexes words, phrases AND characters. This means if you're searching for "travel," you will also find "traveling" and "travels."

If it will look good, change your keywords using the longest variation of your important keywords. In our "travel" keyword example, the word "travel" is also present in the words "travels" and "traveling." With Yahoo, by using the word "traveling" you are assured hits when people search on "travel" OR "traveling." You are, in effect, protecting two keywords for the price of one!

Put your Keywords in your "YAHOO SUBMISSIONS" Document that you created earlier.

Step 4: Write your Websites Title!

If you're a commercial site, you won't get added by using a title that just describes the site content and not the company name. 

Don't use marketing lingo like, 'We're the best.' If category editors have a choice between a site title like, 'Top quality cars at affordable prices' or 'Tommy's Auto Sales,' they will spend more time on the one using the correct title.

Yahoo Category Editors will do everything they can to find the legitimate name of your business. They prefer it if you go by the name you gave your business as a site title. This is why it is important that you buy a Domain Name that will be optimized for Yahoo.

You will want to consider alphabetical superiority if you have control over your company name naming your company a, "d.b.a. (doing business as)" for the purposes of your Website to be first in a category can result in a tremendous volume of traffic. This is no different than what people have been doing in the phone book for years:

AAACME Xylophone Repair AAA Auto Parts

There's value in being first but only you can determine if this would be ethical or appropriate given the type of business or organization you lead. 

If you are about to build a website to sell a product and you haven't really established company or product name yet, consider a name that is alphabetically advantageous. If you are "Zebra Systems" and well known in the marketplace as such, you're out of luck. 

Renaming your company or product for the purposes of your website will mean that people who know and are simply trying to check for your business hours won't find you.

Now I am going to show you the little know secrets to help you create your websites Title that will greatly increase your relevancy and your ranking on Yahoo.

Make sure your Tile:

* Is your actual Domain Name. Does your current Domain Name begin with the letter A, or uses an ASCII Character Symbol such as !, -, #, $, %, &, or + (If not, you will want to buy a Domain Name that does because I will put you at the head of a category list on Yahoo).

* Contains 3-4 of your Top Keywords. Include important keywords near the beginning of the title, preferably as the first word or two.

* Is in all CAPITAL LETTERS because capitalized letters and words automatically rank higher than their lower case equivalent.

* Uses one or two high-ranking ASCII Characters to separate words. Such as a Dash "-", Exclamation Point "!", or a Plus Sign "+".

* Does not exceed 40 characters and contain no marketing hype such as "we're the best"!

For Example: If the name of your company is Ray's Web Graphics with your Primary Domain Name being www.RaysWebGraphics.Com, but your Top Keywords are Free, Graphics, and High Quality then...

Obtain the Domain Name of "A+FREE-HIGH-QUALITY-GRAPHICS.Com" from www.DirectNic.Com for only $15.00 and use this Domain Name as your Primary Domain Name to your website. Then replace Ray's Web Graphics on all of your web pages to "A+FREE-HIGH-QUALITY-GRAPHICS.Com".

You can still use www.RaysWebGraphics.Com as a Secondary Domain Name. So whether potential customers who found you on Yahoo type in www.A+FREE-HIGH-QUALITY-GRAPHICS.Com or your current customers type in www.RaysWebGraphics.Com, they will still all end up at your websites homepage.

Using www.A+FREE-HIGH-QUALITY-GRAPHICS.Com will automatically give you a higher placement on Yahoo! 

It is important that your legitimate business name and Primary Domain Name is www.A+FREE-HIGH-QUALITY-GRAPHICS.Com, and the Yahoo category editor see's this same name used on your web pages, and then Yahoo will have to accept it. So long as the name appears to be used in trade throughout your website with the ASCII character, category editors won't have a problem with it.

Think about what you want your Primary Domain Name to be that will rank high on Yahoo and when you decide on the best one, type it into your "YAHOO SUBMISSIONS" Document.

Step 5: Write your Website's Description!

Your websites description is very important because this is what will be displayed to people when they are looking through the Yahoo Search Results. Here are my secret techniques you should employ when creating your site's description.

Your description must:

* Be under 25 words or 200 characters including spaces. If your description is at 26 or 28 words then use a "-" between words so that you can to reduce your word count. Such as HIGH-QUALITY-GRAPHICS, etc. Use this sparingly; you don't want more than 4 words with spaces between them.

* Begin with your Top 3-4 Keywords and they must be CAPITALIZED. Fill in as many other keywords as possible. Capital letters rank higher than non-capitalized letters. "MORTGAGE" will rank higher than its lowercase equivalent, "mortgage." Yahoo specifically asks you not to use text in all caps in your entire site description, but you can at least capitalize the first Three to Four Keywords.

* Contain no ad copy or anything that smacks of marketing hype and be well written with just the facts.

* Avoid any stop words, like "the" or "and" and so on. Yahoo does rank sites alphabetically within categories - this I know for certain. What you may not know is that when Yahoo returns matches for Keyword Searches, after the categories are returned, Yahoo returns Websites within each category, and only the sites within those categories that are most Relevant to the Keyword Search. 

This means that Yahoo looks at the prominence and frequency of keywords in your site title, description and URL.

Step 6: Submit your Website to Yahoo!

If your website sells any products or services, then you must pay Yahoo $199 along with your submission and your site will be looked at within a week. This is their Business Express Service and even though it might be a lot of money to pay it will be more than worth it when you consider all of the traffic you will receive.

You can find out more about Business Express at http://www.yahoo.com/info/suggest/busexpress.html. Go to Yahoo and click until you find your pre-determined category and then look for the "Add URL" button from the top of this section's page.

You will be presented with a series of questions about your site, specifically the site's URL, what you would like the site to be titled, and a site description. You will also be asked to suggest another category where your Web site should be listed. Input your second choice in that field.

I stress again the importance of entering if your information EXACTLY the way it is supposed to be. Make sure that your Domain Name is typed in using all Capital letters, your keywords in your Title and Description are Capitalized the way they should be including any dashes, exclamation points, or other ASCII Characters, etc. If you make one mistake you're in trouble.

You can request Yahoo to make some changes or correct any errors you may have made but don't count on this! It is much better to get it right the first time.

You will be informed via e-mail if your site is listed. You will not be informed if it is rejected. That's why we recommend that you play the six-month rule. If you haven't heard from them by six months, it's probably a good idea to reevaluate the site and resubmit.

Do not resubmit your site again, as is. It wasn't accepted for a reason the first time, and most likely won't be accepted the second time for the same reason.

If you don't make it in, ask yourself the same questions at the beginning of this article and follow the steps. Only this time change the wording to 'how can I improve on each one'. Once your site has been reevaluated and improved, submit it again.

SPECIAL NOTE: Some Websites that contain timely news or information can sometimes get indexed very quickly -if you ask for it! For instance, Yahoo has a "very specialized movie surfer" who specializes in getting movie sites listed as quickly as necessary for release dates. 

If you are promoting an event or some product with an expiration date and you must get your site listed quickly, you should consider contacting Yahoo and seeing if they will help. The Yahoo staff is awesome and are very committed to making Yahoo a terrific product. They will help you if they can.

Step 7: Check to see if you're listed in Yahoo! 

Go to http://www.yahoo.com and search on your domain name. Simply type your domain into the search screen, http://www.yourcompany.com

Then, search for categories that you would list yourself under and review the category for your site.

If you don't get listed after 2 weeks then try improving your site and submitting it again. Or, call Yahoo's Listing Service Line at 408-731-3333 and speak to someone or leave a message asking why you weren't listed.

Contact Yahoo

Yahoo, Inc. 3400 Central Expressway #201 Santa Clara, CA 95051 Telephone: 408-731-3300 Fax: 408-731-3301 www.yahoo.com/info (has current e-mail addresses)

Step 8: Increase Your Link Popularity! 

Now that you are in the Yahoo Directory, you will definitely need to increase your Link Popularity. 

Top directories like Yahoo, LookSmart, Open Directory, NBCi, as well as the major Search Engines such as Google, Excite, AltaVista and others now rank web pages based on their Link Popularity. 

Link Popularity is determined by how many other websites on the Internet have Hyper-Links to your website. The more websites are linked to your site, the higher your website will be ranked!

I have discovered the best methods of increasing your websites Link Popularity that will save you a lot of time and money. These proven strategies can be found in my latest article titled: 16 Proven Methods to Increase Your Link Popularity. Come and take a look!

If you would like to have more specialized step-by-step information on submitting to other high quality directories such as LookSmart, Open Directory, and Inktomi, then come to http://www.WebXSuccess.Com and discover how easy it is when you use the proven strategies in my Site Starter Program ebook!

About the Author: Robert Seberger is the owner of WebXSuccess.Com and produces the Site Starter Program ebook that teaches you proven techniques and strategies to help you make more money online, all the time. Download a Free Sample Chapter of Site Starter at: http://www.WebXSuccess.Com 

This article is Copyright 2001 by WebXSuccess.Com, Inc.  mailto:FeatureArticles@WebXSuccess.Com. All copyrights remain with the author.

Hidden Secrets on How to  Successfully Rank Higher than Your  Competition on Yahoo! By Robert Seberger of http://www.WebXSuccess.Com