How to get your web site listed in the DMOZ Open Directory

SEO Experts tell you there are 4 places to make sure to submit your links to.  Google, Yahoo, MSN (BING) and DMOZ.

The first three are fairly straightforward but DMOZ is an art all to itself.  I am here to try to demystify the process and the frustration of getting your site listed in DMOZ and hopefully help the volunteer editors at DMOZ happy because people aren’t submitting and resubmitting their sites to the wrong categories, multiple categories, requesting title changes, category changes, description changes so many times that it leads to hours of wasted time for these volunteers.

First off let me explain that there are two area’s of DMOZ.

• Topical Categories (Arts, Business, Computers, Games, Health, Home, Kids and Teens, News, Recreation, Reference, Science, Shopping, Society and Sports)

• Regional (Where in the world is the physical address of the business you have a website for)

You are allowed to submit you site to both of these area’s.

You next step is to drill down into the directory to find the category that MOST closely describes your business. Say for instance you sell childrens shoes.

One choice would be Shopping:Clothing:Childrens:Footwear

Click Suggest a URL

You will see this message

“This category is for children’s footwear sites that offer online shopping. If your site is not specific to children please submit it to the general category or another sub-category. The main category is for sites that sell footwear for a variety of people.Not submitting to the correct sub-category can delay your site being listed. We are not a search engine and pride ourselves on being highly selective. We don’t accept all sites, so please don’t take it personally should your site not be accepted. Submissions are reviewed as quickly as possible, however there is no set time frame for inclusion in the directory.

Things that will help you get listed: 1) Make sure your site does not have numerous broken links. 2) Only submit sites that are complete. Sites that are under construction will not be considered. 3) Good html. Sites that cause a browser to crash are difficult to review. 4) DO NOT submit to categories that are not appropriate for your site.

These are GREAT Tips… So do these things!

Lets say that you don’t sell shoes online but at a retail store….Then DON’T submit your site to Shopping!
Go to Regional and again DRILL DOWN to the location first and then the category for your Children’s Shoe Store
Lets say it’s in Los Angeles California. You would go to Regional: North America: United States: California: Localities: L: Los Angeles: Business and Economy: Shopping: Clothing
In this case there aren’t enough shoe stores to warrant another sub category. The subcategories are at the discretion of the volunteer editor in that Locality. Submit your site here. If you have shoe stores in several locations say, San Francisco, LA & San Diego, then you can submit your url to those three localities. Just go to each DRILL DOWN to the lowest level and submit there.

When you submit to the top of California, it could take days, weeks or months for your site to get down to the local editor that will post it for you.. (Keep remembering these folks are unpaid volunteers!) If there are tips or rules for that locality, pay attention, do what it says to do.

Lets say it’s been a month or more since you submitted your site and you go to the locality and it is still not listed.. look at the bottom of that page for the local editor.. if there is none there, go up one level until you find an editor. You can click on their editor name and email them to ask them about getting your site listed. Be Nice! Be Polite! These editors have lives, jobs, families, books to read… your site might not be at the top of their list but IF you contact them they might communicate with you and let you know why your site wasn’t listed there, what you might need to do to get it listed.

REAL ESTATE AGENTS!!! Are the WORST offenders of the DMOZ Directory. ALL realtors will sell or buy a home ANYWHERE…. but that does NOT mean you get to have yourself listed in every city, town, nook or cranny that’s anywhere near your office. You may be list ONE time and ONLY one time in the location where your office is located. Your office is in Denver but you sell homes in Boulder… you still are only allowed one listing in Denver where your actual office is. Submitting it everywhere over and over will just get you marked as a spammer and possibly not listed at all.
Your site can only be listed as REALTOR NAME – REAL ESTATE COMPANY as the title and the description will be short and consist of what a user will find on your site. i.e. community information, current listings, online applications etc.

Sites other than Real Estate sites

Look at the category you’ve chosen to submit your site to.  What do those titles and descriptions look like?  Yours will likely look very similar.

TITLES

Titles are only whatever the actual title of your site. I know that for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) you’ve been told to make your title descriptive and to include your key words… That’s true everywhere else.. but NOT at DMOZ.  This site is not SPIDERED  so it doesn’t matter what keywords you have.  All you really care about is that you get A LINK from DMOZ, it really doesn’t matter if it’s got keywords in it or not.  The category and location you are in are the keywords and then the search engines take the information listed and use the links to spider your site.

DESCRIPTIONS

DO NOT Submit your site with a description Like “The #1 Coolest Mortgage Broker on the Planet! Come buy from me I have the best rates and am trustworthy!” The Dmoz editors don’t know you or your site or if you are trustworthy, so they are going to objectively peruse your site to see if you have unique content, if it’s easy to navigate, if it’s a complete site (Remember above it says DO NOT SUBMIT Under Construction or incomplete sites with broken links)

Here are the Editing Style Guidelines that the Editors use when listing your site at DMOZ.

Sites that will not be listed include but are not limited to:

1. Spammy, ad’s only, affiliate only type sites with bogus content that’s only there to trick the search engines until Google puts them in the sandbox.  I know YOUR site isn’t one of those, but you’ve probably seen those types of useless internet junk.  Those sites will not be listed no matter now many times you submit them.
2. Sites with missing graphics, broken links, hang up your browser, have annoying popups will not be listed
3. Under-construction sites
4. X-rated, hate, you know the type.. don’t submit them there.. they won’t be listed.
5. Affiliate Marketing Schemes
6. Identical Mirrors
7. Redirects and “Cloaked” URLs
8. Illegal Sites
9. Site Listings Including Search Results
10. Product Listings
11. Internal Notices as Site Listings
12. Spider Food, Lead Generators, and Content Mill

Think you can do a better job, have extra time, this sounds like it would be fun! Volunteer  Information Here!

There are probably things I’ve forgotten, but if you follow these general guidelines your chances of getting your site listed at DMOZ will be increased exponentially.

Feel free to post any questions and I’ll do my best to answer.

How hard is it to create a Facebook page for my business you ask?

It’s pretty darn easy…  Even a Cave Man could do it!

I have been advising my clients to create Facebook pages for their businesses even if they have no interest in being “ON” FACEBOOK to connect with friends, family, customers and prospects.

I just created a couple of Facebook pages for two of my clients. They only take a few minutes, put your link on one of the top ranking pages in the WORLD, provide an easy way to get the word out and can serve as a blog of sorts if you don’t have time for one of those.

The link helps with Search Engine Optimization, the more hits your website receives helps, the more people that know about your business and share your Facebook page with their Facebook friends helps… Search Engine Optimization is not that hard really, just follow the basics and spread the word.  If you have solid content on your website, provide great service, value and a product people can use, all of these strategies work synergistically to help your SEM and SEO.

Check these two Facebook business pages out.

My favorite hair stylist in the world Bethany Kay Hair She is now in the Sahair  Salon on in Parker Colorado.S. Progress Way Suite #100.  You can reach her at(720) 851-8522. She specializes in hair color, highlights, low lights, hair extensions (Like the movie stars have) and her salon has experts in massage, manicures, pedicures and acrylic nails.

And the people I trust with my car Pride Auto Care They are a full service garage with 3 locations in the Denver Metro area, Centennial, Littleton and Parker. You can also follow Pride on Twitter @PrideAutoCare

Check both of these great places out and tell them Your Web Chick sent you!

To create a Facebook Page click here and get started.  If you have trouble or questions just post them here and I’ll give you a hand!

See what COPYBLOGGER has to say about Facebook in his recent post How Facebook is Gunning for Google

#1 Join FACEBOOK and TWITTER… They really aren’t scary or hard.

Twitter …. Well, I just LOVE Twitter.  I only have about 5 face to face friends on twitter but I have gotten SO much from my short time there.  (Look for another article talking about that soon).  Here’s what you do.

• Sign up using a name that is catchy and makes sense for your business. A name like @ George239 isn’t very interesting, and @Hotchick4u is likely to get you booted out of Twitter.    Sign up for Twitter
• Fill out your profile completely! People won’t follow if they don’t know who you are and what you might tweet about.
• change your twitter background from the original. (After you get going think about doing a custom background) I can help with that if you like.. email me at milehiweb@yahoo.com
• Go to Twitter Grader enter your @ name. Your score will be low, but that’s not the point for now, with that tool you can search for people using a keyword like “real estate” or “marketing” “Politics” and it will give you the top tweeters in that area.
• Follow them.. Follow who they interact with, look for other people in your other area’s of interest.
• There are two schools of thought about if you should keep all your Twitter following/followers with one account, or split into personal and business.  That is your call.
• If someone’s tweets are spammy… you have the power, just stop following them.
• If you want people to follow you, build value and relationships with people, don’t just squack.. Look what I did, look what I wrote, look what I sell.
• Read TwiTips – a blog by Darren Rowse – A Twitter Must Read
• Follow @problogger Darren was one of the first people I followed and one of the first that responded to me (a nobody) directly.  That impressed me!
• There are lots of applications that are free.  Some of my favorites are

1. Friend or Follow This tells you who is following you that you follow, who is following you that you don’t follow and who you follow that isn’t following you.
2. Tweet Later You can use this to auto DM (Direct Message) people that follow you.  If you use this, make it a friendly message not a BUY THIS FROM MY NOW! type.  People will often unfollow you if you do. & auto follow people that follow you. This also allows you to send yourself an email targeting keywords you are interested in or a person you are interested in.
3. Twitter Local - Shows you the people that live in your area that are Tweeters and an example of their last few tweets.
4. OutTwit - This is an application that brings twitter right into your Microsoft Outlook.  It can be configured in many different ways and their tech support is awesome
   
5. Tweet Deck - A down loadable application that lets you see your Twitterland in all sorts of organized ways.
6. TwitWall – A more complete profile of who you are, what you tweet about, perhaps a picture or two. I wish they had a place to actually link this on your twitter like a “for more info” link.  Anyway, it’s kinda fun. See mine here.
7. Advanced Twitter Search – Thanks to@denverish for sending me this gem. It lets you search the tweets by location, word, phrase, positive people, ?’s being asked.  Very cool!

• I would also recommend going to the local #tweetups.  the #mark is used in Twitter to help you organize events, groups.  you search for #yourtopic and all of the tweets and twits about it come up. so watch for things like #DenverTweetup.  This will give you an opportunity to meet some of the @ people you follow face to face.

• Read Don’t be a Twitter Snob here! & read this article on choosing your Online Profile picture wisely

• 

  @yourwebchick

• Can you think of any other reasons to join these two social networks?
• Or great applications I missed?
• Please comment below!

Facebook isn’t MySpace… I have a page there just for the links but I NEVER “socialize” there… It’s best use is for the artsey folks, musicians etc.  But Facebook is a whole other story, it began as a more “sophisticated” Myspace for College kids, but now those kids are 30 something plus and networking socially and for business too.  Once you join  Facebook,

• use the search tools to find friends and colleagues,
• create a Facebook page for your business
• look for colleagues and  experts in your industry to “friend” and keep them up to date on what your business is doing by
• fill out the “what you are doing” part and send links to articles or interest or your latest blog postings…. or
• Add your blog to your Facebook account so it automatically posts new links.
• Become “a fan” of companies you like… Everyone will see this and you even get your name and face mentioned in the ad’s that pop up.
• Friend Mari Smith.. She is the GURU of Facebook for Business.  See more about her on my Mari Smith the Facebook Guru post here!

This article talks about twitter etiquette. If people follow you, what are your responsibilities to them?

Do you HAVE to follow? I have found that I only want to follow those people who are dead on topic for me with either SEO, SEM, Website Design, Blogging or simply those people that are within my state as I enjoy those connections as well. To just follow anyone and everyone that follows you created a huge waste of time for me, and even more things to look at and decide if they are worthy of my time. I am experimenting with having more than one Twitter “face”. I have my @yourwebchick profile for my business interests and @veryhappywife for the more girlie side of me that likes to learn and discuss things like gardening, photography, parenting semi adult, empty nesters, scrapbooking etc. I haven’t spent much time making connections on that one yet so I’ll let you know how my experiment goes.

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The major reason why you need a good SEO plan is profitability. Search Engine Optimization is the cheapest form of affiliate marketing. The majority of web surfers use search engines to find information on products or services. A low search engine placing will mean your site is passed over time and again.  You might as well not even have a website if no one can find it.  If your web designer doesn’t know a key word from a key ring, email me right away!

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