Submitting Your Site To The Open Directory
By Sumantra Roy, Sat Dec 10th
Getting your site an optimum listing in the Open Directory(http://www.dmoz.org) is vitally important as far as searchengine positioning is concerned as Google gives a lot ofimportance to sites being listed in the Open Directory.
In this article, we focus on how you can get your site anoptimum listing in the Open Directory. Even if your site isalready listed in the Open Directory, you should read thisarticle to find out how you can get multiple listings in theOpen Directory.
Before you submit your site, go through your entire site andensure that there are no missing graphics, no links leading toempty or non-existent pages and no "Under construction" symbols.Also, check for typos and grammatical errors. Furthermore, yoursite must provide good content. If your site simply containslinks to various affiliate programs, you will find it difficultto get through. The Open Directory does not mind sitescontaining links to affiliate programs, as long as you provideproper content.
You now need to select the two most important keywords for yoursite based on their popularity. If you don't yet know thekeywords which are applicable for your site, have a look at myarticle on "Choosing the correct keywords for your site",available athttp://www.1stSearchRanking.com/t.cgi?4901&keywords.htm In thisarticle, I have mentioned that while selecting the keywords foryour site, you should look at both the popularity of thekeywords as well as their competitiveness. However, for thepurpose of this article, don't worry about the competitiveness -select keywords only on the basis of popularity.
We now discuss how you should write the Title and Description ofyour site's listing in the Open Directory. You don't really havemuch choice regarding the Title as the Open Directory insiststhat the Title be the official name of your site. There is noway around it.
When you write the description, your aim should be to make theOpen Directory editor's job as easy as possible. You should notgive the editor the feeling that he/she needs to edit yourdescription in any way. The moment an editor starts to edit yourdescription, you risk having your keywords removed from yourdescription.
Your description should be a single sentence which conveys whatyour site is all about and contains the two keywords you aretargeting as close as possible to the beginning of thedescription. However, your description should not just be a listof keywords - the description that you use should be a propersentence and should be grammatically correct.
Broadly, here are the rules that you should remember whenforming the description:
i) Make sure that the description can tell a visitor what yoursite is all about. Things like "Have a look at our site" or"Welcome to my site" does not tell a visitor what your site does.
ii) Avoid hype of any sort. Avoid using ALL CAPS or exclamationmarks. Phrases like "The best web site dealing with widgets!!"or "Offers the BEST QUALITY, CHEAPEST WIDGETS you can findanywhere" are inappropriate.
iii) Don't capitalize every word in your description -capitalize only the first word. Of course, if some of the wordsin the description are proper nouns, then you should capitalizethem.
iv) Write the description in the third person. Don't say "Weoffer financial planning and credit counseling services", say"Offers financial planning and credit counseling services.".
v) Don't make your description too long - limit yourself to 15words at the most. If you are lucky, you may be able to getaccepted with a description longer than 15 words. However,longer the description, higher the probability that the editorwill want to edit it.
vi) Check your description for typos and grammatical mistakes.
vii) End your description with a period. If the editor has toadd the period to the end of your description, she may also endup editing the description, which is not what you want. Your aimis to have the editor accept the exact description that you hadwritten in order to ensure that your keywords are not removedfrom the description.
Now, we come to how you can select the right category for yoursite. Go to the Open Directory, and search for the two keywordsyou have established. Does a particular category come up at thetop for both the keywords? If so, go to that category, and seewhether the sites present in the category are similar to yours.Also see whether that category has a Description and/or a FAQ.Read them and find out whether that category is applicable foryour site. If so, this is the category you should submit yoursite to.
If different categories come up at the top for the two keywords,go through all the categories and find out which is the mostappropriate category among the different categories.
For some keywords, you will find that the Open Directory doesnot display any categories. In this case, find out whichcategory most of the top sites belong to and submit your site tothat category, assuming it is applicable for your site.
Once you have selected the right category, click on the "addURL" link at the top. Type in the address of your site in thefirst text box, the official name of your site in the next textbox, the description that you have earlier developed in thethird text box and your email address in the fourth text box.Although the Open Directory says that including
