I believe my web site has been banned from Google

No web site is banned without a reason. The practice is mostly used for domains which have been in violation of the Terms and Conditions of the Google Search Engine, and/or were breaching policies of Google Inc. Bans may come without a warning, and are most of the time based on automatic alerts by quality filters, followed by human evaluation. If the web site is found to be unacceptable to be shown for users as a result, it is then unacceptable for the Google index. It then may be removed from the result pages, and blacklisted in the database. The IP address, and link network the domain had connections with may also be affected. Repeated abuse from different domains, but same IP address / range / network may result in the ban of all affiliated domains and web sites, especially if these are all owned by the same entity.

+ Symptoms: Web site does not appear in the Google index at all. No search query will bring up any information on its pages, not even one for its own domain name. An almost sure indication of a ban is when the site:(example.com) command shows zero results in Google search. You may also use the info: command in the same manner. In certain cases banned web sites will show a single, URL-only result for these two queries for a short period, before being excluded completely.

+ Common reasons: Illegal or highly questionable content or practices. Major accessibility and usability issues arising from under- or over-optimization. Spam. Linking to either of the above. Being hosted, linking to or being cross referenced in a network of web sites practicing either of the above.

+ Resolution: Examine your web site based on the Google Webmaster Guidelines and for possible breaches of Google policies, correct the problems and do a reinclusion request. Make sure you don't send a request for pages that still need additional work to comply with the Terms and Conditions of Google. Once the web site has been re-evaluated, it may be accepted back into the Google index, provided it has addressed all problems. Reading through the articles on this web site, and following up on the resources presented, may provide you with hints on what to look for when diagnosing your pages. However most of the time, owners of banned web sites know all too well what they were banned for. For the rare exception, your web site may not have any other problems than unintentionally showing false indications of being spam or other unacceptable content, is being seen as affiliated with another banned domain, or is seen within a network of such web sites.

For more information on possible causes and their resolution read up on TrustRank, Buying links, Link Schemes, Bad neighborhood, Accessibility and Usability issues, Scraper sites, and Reinclusion requests.

You may also open the + Website Diagnostics Panel to help you diagnose your web site.

Important pages of my web site are shown as supplemental results

Supplemental Results are not necessarily an indication of a quality filter flag. Pages that are perceived by the web site owner to be important, yet showing the Supplemental tag on their results may or may not be caused by factors that could be seen as a problem that needs to be or could be corrected. The supplemental index is seen as a secondary database of results for unique information appearing on, and sometimes only on less important pages, URLs that are unlikely to be looked or shown for generic search terms, but will remain in the index for more refined, obscure queries.

+ Symptoms: Pages of the web site that previously were shown as normal results are now Supplemental Results, thus rank significantly lower than other pages and web sites.

+ Common reasons: Inconsistent, linear, or otherwise corrupted navigation. Accessibility issues resulting in PageRank not flowing through the web site in a way its owners would like it to. Low PageRank of the pages on the web site. Duplicate content. Also, URLs that have been changed, redirected or deleted may be featured with their old versions in the supplemental index along with a cached snapshot of their last seen state up to a year. In these cases make sure to check whether the URL in question also shows as a normal result, which would be the updated version of the same page.

+ Resolution: Examine your web site structure thoroughly for duplicate content, navigational inconsistencies and link hierarchy. Also, as the web site is seen more and more important as a resource, gaining more quality inbound links will raise its PageRank and allow its inner-level pages to be viewed as a relevant result for broader queries, and may eventually be transferred to the normal index. Make sure to pass the proper amount of weight to pages to be considered important by using Anchor text links instead of javascript, flash, image links.

See more information and hints on the reworked Supplemental Results index , Duplicate content, proper Website navigation and PageRank in the related articles.

You may also open the + Website Diagnostics Panel to help you diagnose your web site.

http://diagnostics.googlerankings.com/supplemental.html

I believe my web site has been penalized by Google

A "penalty" is a common phrase referring to cases where an established page, pages or an entire web site/domain is suddenly showing at significantly lower positions on search result pages than used to. Most of the time these symptoms are the result of a quality / relevancy / spam filter flagging a URL or all URLs on a domain. Most of such problems can be tracked down to either minor or major quality problems, the level of relevancy being questioned or the linking profile being seen as unnatural. These URLs are viewed as less likely to be valued by users doing searches on Google, but not excluded from the Index entirely. The vast majority of these issues are an automatic response to what the Google algorithms consider "lower quality results" ( results, and not web sites ) and while penalties are far more uncommon than one might think, they can be viewed as one of the parameters that the ranks consist of. Hence they can be dealt with by addressing the problems, so during subsequent crawls, the freshly calculated parameters may exclude these flags, and allow a higher position on the result pages. Just as in the case of manual bans, no web page / site is penalized without a reason, although in certain cases an automated penalty may arise not from an actual practice, but indications of a practice. There is no board to request a re-evaluation from, as all pages that are being indexed are also being constantly re-evaluated by the algorithms, based on the new data Googlebot gathers from web sites. A corrected accessibility issue, duplicate content or previously unset canonical URL etc., will be thus picked up automatically, and the pages will gradually rank better. In rare cases where a penalty is not lifted automatically even after the previously filtered pages/references have been crawled and indexed by Google, filing a reinclusion request may be needed. However, allow at least an entire cycle of Googlebot crawling these resources before deciding to come to this conclusion. Should a web site be penalized because of off-site reasons, check whether these URLs have been crawled since the correction or not.

+ Symptoms: Web page / site is in the Google index, but ranks significantly lower than before, sometimes in a noticeable pattern of losing its position throughout queries for important keywords and keyphrases or URL patterns, subdomains. In some cases web site is not the first result for a search of its own domain name. Indications such as a drop of PageRank to zero, without the page being excluded from the index, may also provide information on where the problem lies.

+ Common reasons: Massive overuse or misuse of elements on a web site, irregular page or inbound link growth, irregular or off-topic linking patterns, accessibility and usability problems, linking to Bad Neighborhoods, massive duplicate content problems and more.

+ Resolution: Examine your web pages based on the Google Webmaster Guidelines and for possible breaches of Google policies, correct the problems, and allow the changes to take root as consecutive crawls update the data associated to the URLs. There are a wide range of reasons why a web page or web site may be "penalized", but more often than not, just by asking yourself what you ( or sometimes others associated to your site ) might have done to trigger such a reaction, you will probably be right on spot. The Google algorithms are designed to simulate and provide a user experience, a view on quality that is quite easy to comprehend by applying common sense. If it is, or it looks like as if it was the misuse of page elements to artificially gain relevance, if it is, or it looks like as if it was a link scheme to haste the accumulation of PageRank, if it is, or looks as if it was spam, cloaking, plagiarized ( or duplicate ) content, etc., it may sooner or later trigger a flag from a quality filter, or in other words a "penalty". The filters that are applied to the vast amount of data collected by Googlebot are constantly updated based on researches on both user and web site behavior, examining "natural" and "artificial" linking patterns, adjusting accessibility standards, and taking many other factors into consideration as well. Should a penalty not be lifted even after all previously filtered on and off-site problems have been corrected, you may need to file a reinclusion request as well. Allow at least an entire cycle of Googlebot crawling these pages before coming to this conclusion.

To identify the kind of quality issues your web page/site faces, follow the information and resources provided in the articles to give you some general hints on what to correct. Keep in mind that first you have to look for the obvious reasons, and only after being able to exclude them should you turn to the less common, more complex possibilities. In this process, you'll need to learn how to look at your own web site as a critic, an average user, and even as a competitor.

For well established web sites that had ranked reasonably good for up until recently, the idea of triggering relatively new search quality filters may be the first thing to check the pages against. See more information under Duplicate content, Supplemental Results, Canonical URLs, Bulk update, The "sandbox", Omitted results and TrustRank.

Web sites that have had a long time case of ranking lower than their on-page relevance and linking profile alone could indicate, PageRank, TrustRank, Anchor text link, Usability and Accessibility issues, and linking related articles may provide some hints.

If you can exlude with confidence ( or have already fixed ) all on-page and known linking pattern problems, and the penalty still persists, you may need to look for the most rare although at the same time most extreme causes as well, such as Hijacking. Another hint may be that it's not always the doing of the current webmaster or even the content, linking pattern of the actual web site, but the remains of a Historic Domain Penalty. Make sure you know of the history of the domain the web site is hosted on. If the domain name was pre-owned, and it was the previous web site that has been penalized, you may need to bring the change of ownership to the attentnion of Google Inc. to lift the penalty.

You may also open the + Website Diagnostics Panel to help you diagnose your web site.

Embarking on an Internet marketing campaign doesn't have to be difficult, tricky, or complicated. Here are a few simple ways (twenty in fact) that you can easily implement to get tons of traffic to your site right now!

1) Write articles: believe it or not this is an incredible tool for driving traffic. Well-written, relevant articles can net quite a bit of activity to your web site. Don't forget to add your URL in your byline. Articles should be 500 to 2,000 words in length. You can send articles to sites like: Article City, GoArticles, Submit Your Articles and Ezine Articles.

2) Social bookmark *everything* - and I do mean everything - you can bookmark each page of your site and each blog entry you post. While this might seem tedious, it's worth it. You'll see a strong increase in traffic if you social bookmark each page on your site and each of your blog entries.

3) List yourself in the best directories – you'll have to pay for this but since most people don't do this (since everyone's looking for a freebie) you could really enhance your traffic by getting a listing: dir dot yahoo dot com, business dot org, botw dot org.

4) Get yourself listed at: DMOZ dot org – it's not easy to get listed there, but worth the effort.

5) Review: if you can review hot new products or books within your market, head on over to Amazon and start positioning yourself as an expert. In order to do this effectively you'll want to create an Amazon profile and make sure and sign each review with a reference to your URL (your web site). You can also go to Epinions and Revoo to review products as well.

6) Offer a freebie on Craig's List: you'll be amazed at how much traffic you get from a single Craig's List ad. The key here is to send people to a page on your site and make sure they have to sign up for something (like your email newsletter) before they can grab their freebie. That way you're not just getting traffic, you're also building your list.

7) Create a "recommended by" list on your Delicious page – you can do this by logging on and creating an account and there and then tagging articles, blogs and other content you think is important to your readership. Then offer this page as a resource site. You can add a link to this page in your email signature line or on your web site.

8) And speaking of your email signature line... do you have one? If you don't, create one. Believe it or not, people do follow these links. You'll be amazed how many folks read email signature lines. I have one and change it several times a year, depending on what we're doing or promoting or what books I have coming out.

9) Lend a helping hand: you can be an answer person at Yahoo Answers – you don't have to spend hours on there, but maybe a few minutes a week. Make sure and include a link back to your site following your answers.

10) Set up a social networking site using Facebook, LinkedIn, or Squidoo. It's free and easy to do, just don't forget the all-important link back to your site!

11) Make sure your blog has an RSS feed so if you capture a reader you don't lose them if they forget to bookmark your site or blog.

12) Join relevant groups at Yahoo groups. You'll find everything from groups on growing your small business, writing books, finding your passion, even underwater basket weaving. I dare you to find one that isn't right for what you're promoting. When you do find the right group, join and participate as you can!

13) Podcasting is another great way to drive traffic. Start a podcast by going to Audio Acrobat. There are other programs you can use, but I love Audio Acrobat. You can record the podcast over the phone quickly and easily and then hit the "send" button on your computer once it's recorded and the system will syndicate it to 27 podcast directories including iTunes. It's a great way to let people know about you and your web site!

14) Start a blog and then once you do, start commenting on other people's blogs, linking to them from your site or adding them to your blogroll.

15) Inbound links: don't squander your time (or a perfectly good link) on smaller low-traffic sites. Instead spend your time going after high traffic, high quality sites. Good sites should have a PR (page ranking) of 4-6 depending on the market. You can find out what a site's page ranking is by downloading the Google toolbar which comes with a PR feature built in.

16) Start an email newsletter: while it may not seem like a newsletter that you email can drive traffic to your site you'd be surprised at the effectiveness of this type of promotion. If your newsletter (like your articles) is interesting and relevant to your audience, you'll find that it has a huge pass-through factor, meaning that it is passed from one email subscriber to another. Also, if you have an email newsletter you should never, ever go to a single event without your handy signup sheet. Yes, you can even use offline events to drive traffic to your web site.

17) And speaking of offline efforts: if you're ever quoted in a magazine or other publication, make sure and mention your URL as it's appropriate to the topic. Don't be too pushy about this, but do not forget to tell folks you have a web site that may be a great resource for the topic of your interview.

18) If you have products to sell, why not get a store on eBay? This site gets a tremendous amount of traffic and on your sales page you're allowed to list your URL. It's another great way to get an inbound link and a way for people to find you.

19) Load a video on YouTube and 57 other video sites (the rest listed on my Red Hot Internet Publicity blog).

20) While this isn't a tip per se, it's still important. If you're going to go through all the trouble of getting traffic to your site, make sure your site is converting this traffic into something. Get folks to sign up for something, your newsletter, the RSS feed on your blog. Whatever it is, getting their email address will help you remarket to them when the time is right. Studies show that visitors landing on a site often don't buy the first time. That's ok! You want to get them into your marketing funnel so you can market to them again and again – not in a way that's obtrusive, offensive or downright annoying, but in a way that is helping them with their own mission.

An example of this might be an email newsletter. A helpful, informative newsletter is a fantastic funnel. A blog is another great way to keep people in your marketing loop without bombarding them with "please buy my stuff" email messages. Also, make sure you know what your traffic numbers are before you launch into any Internet marketing campaign. By traffic numbers I mean how many people are visiting your site. You want to know this so you can gauge a before and after view of your marketing efforts.

According to online statistics from eMarketer, less than 20% of internet users intentionally read content with the aid of an RSS reader.

Indeed, even frequent internet users have no idea what that little orange RSS square represents and certainly don't realize that there is a big shift brewing in the bowels of online publishing and marketing.

But, that may change more quickly than we all used to think for 3 very potent reasons.

There are advantages to RSS that will compel most, if not all, internet users and content consumers to "learn" to use an RSS reader and start managing RSS subscriptions.

In the same way email eclipsed snail mail for content delivery, RSS will eclipse email as the consumer's choice for opt-in messaging.

If you are an email marketer, the time for you to get engaged to RSS has come, because, whether you like it or not, the wedding bells will be ringing soon.

Here's why...

RSS = Embedded Video (and audio)

I recently was asked to help a small business embed video into emails they wanted to send to established clients.

Their vision was clear:

1. Create a quick video email with a webcam, stick it right into their corporate Outlook email with a Youtube style preview.

2. The customer gets the email, clicks the Youtube-looking video preview and the video starts playing.

3. No landing page, they wanted everthing to happen right there inside the email client, whether it was Outlook, AOL, Gmail, Yahoo or otherwise.

Simple right? Nope...

This is simply not possible with email.

Many brilliant companies have tried various tactics to embed video into email in a way that doesn't consistently get blocked or stripped by the various email providers.

With email, the best that can be done is mimic the embedded video look by putting a video preview image in the email which opens up the web browser and plays the video there when clicked.

Ironically, even this comes at a significant cost because of the technical knowledge needed to make it happen.

So why is this a less than perfect solution?

Primarily because none of us like to be bounced around, we want to view video instantly, seamlessly.

After all, we have been trained to expect this level of immediacy by seeing it everyday on Google's "universal search" and countless blogs.

The good news is, embedded video and audio are part and parcel (fundamental elements) of RSS.

Adding video (and audio) that can be instantly viewed by someone receiving an RSS feed is as simple as adding text.

Readers get what they have come to expect and corporations, as well as small businesses, can provide dynamic, highly personal content without paying a coder or webmaster thousands of bucks.

RSS = 100% Deliverability

I was shocked to see the stats on email deliverability rates for the typical business. The fact is, even if you have come by a person's email honestly (that is - you did not buy a bootleg list of emails from some guy in a dark virtual alley) the likelihood of them actually receiving that message from you is 60% or less.

So, let's say you have a list of 1000 customer emails - which you have worked hard and paid real money to acquire. When you send a message, 400 of them (on average) don't get it. It either automatically lands in their Sp@m Folder or gets deleted even before it reaches them.

Even companies like Aweber who make a living sending emails for other people and have intimate agreements with email providers like Gmail, AOL and Yahoo, only get a 90% deliverabilty rate - on a good day (they claim %99.4 but I use Aweber and when I factor in the whole opt-in and email management process, at least 10% of my emails are undelivered).

RSS is quite different. If someone has opted-in to your RSS "feed", they will get 100% of your messages. No doubt about it.

This is obviously good for the company but how is this also an advantage for the customer?

Well, have you ever had the frustration of opting-in to something that you were interested in only to find (after searching for a few minutes) that it was buried in your sp@m box.

Have you ever had to "whitelist" an email address so that each email that was sent wasn't immediately deleted?

Doing this takes TIME... the most expensive commodity any one of us owns.

Once consumers realize there is a simpler way to get 100% of what they want, 100% of the time, and 0% of what they don't want, RSS will start to look like a (pardon the old expression) "no brainer".

RSS = Sp@m-Free

This may be the "tipping point" that triggers the general masses toward RSS.

Yes, sp@m is annoying... it takes time to delete... it contains inappropriate messages which make parents steaming mad... and it is the constant burden of corporations and email providers.

Especially due to the last reason, email will not be free forever. You may not have to pay if you send just a few emails to your friends and family each month but if your sending out a significant number of messages... you will pay.

This will be the email manager's final attempt at curbing the clever spammer.

In fact, email providers are already debating and tweaking a platform similar to cell phone companies where you will have a sending quota.

This will only push spamming into a "higher" art form and challenge the suprisingly intelligent geeks behind this modern phenomenon to new technical heights.

All of this will only serve to highlight the value of RSS even more and compel the average folks into opening up a Google Reader account or using the one they goofed around with more often.

However, before RSS eliminates email as we know it, a few things have to happen...

In the first part of this article we discussed the three compelling features of RSS that will lure the mases of content seekers.

Namely, embedded video, 100% deliverability and sp@m-free information management.

But, before any of us permanently trades in our email account for an RSS Reader, a few things need to happen.

Until then, we will be doing double-duty... checking both our Inbox and our latest feeds.

What RSS Needs Before It Kills Email

1. RSS Content Clients (like Outlook for RSS).
As it stands, messages which are sent via RSS are usually composed inside some sort of blog or other similar content management system and published to the world. All the folks who have requested the RSS "feed" then receive that message into the RSS reader they check whenever it is convenient for them. Generally speaking, the entire group of subscribers gets every message.

Now, imagine a software application that works like an email client such as Outlook that allows you to create a message, format it, add video and audio and then send it to just one (or a selected group) of subscribers via RSS...All without having to publish that content to the world.

This would be the silver bullet solution to all the woes of email.

2. RSS to One or Selected Groups
One of the current appeals of RSS is the fact that one can subscribe to an RSS feed anonymously. You are assured of receiving only messages from that person or website (which is hopefully run by a person) and nothing else. Neither the website owner or the RSS service knows anything about the subscriber. This is a good thing and something that will continue to make RSS valuable.

However, at some point, a more personal RSS option should appear which allows the subscriber a choice. In the future, when someone chooses to subscribe to an RSS feed, h/she will have the option of sharing personal information with the publisher, perhaps just their name and a few selected interests.

They will be glad to do this for two reasons.

1. It will allow the publisher to send only content that matches their desired interests (this is actually already possible but very few take advantage of it).

2. It will allow for private RSS communication between individuals and groups with all 3 benefits listed above - embedded media, 100% deliverability, sp@m-free.

What Killer-RSS Will Look Like

In this new more advanced world, you will have a personal RSS address. Not connected to a business or blog content, just to you personally. Yes, you may be thinking... "just like my email address".

When someone wants to hear from you, they will go to some fancy Web 2.0 service and subscribe to your personal RSS feed. They will sign-up for their own personal RSS feed and then subscribe to yours, providing you with their name (if they are a friend) and perhaps their interests if they are a business contact.

When you want to send them, and only them a message, you'll open up the fancy wysiwyg editor provided by the cool Web 2.0 service mentioned above, create a message and publish it.

Sounds like email right? Exactly...

The difference is, you publish the message not to your public blog but to a private space on the net and to your friend's RSS reader.

So, your friend checks their RSS reader, sees your name on their list of subscriptions, notices that you have published a message to them (and maybe a few other friends) and either reads the message in their reader or in the private space online.

So, as this shift occurs, what we are calling Killer-RSS will be viewed as an upgrade to typical email services with the added benefits mentioned above.

What do you think - will RSS be the email killer? If not, how do you see the RSS - email relationship working out? Visit Web2Center.com to join the dialogue.

After declaring (again) the death (or at least the dying) of print, bloggers and academics have clothed their straw man with proposals that include even government subsidies. It's not just print that's in peril, but real, investigative, long-form journalism. But print's not dead yet, neither is the argument, and bloggers might just lead the resuscitation efforts for journalism itself.

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Editor's Note: Basic formula for failure: high expense + low return. To reverse course, reverse the terms, which is what employing a network of geographically targeted bloggers could ultimately do. No need to subsidize. No need to fear extinction. Market evolution (revolution) will cure all ills. An accurate prediction? Let us know if you think so in the comment section.

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The print-is-dead argument is a bit of a straw man because the scarecrow is still awaiting the (tech) wizard to give it life. Fact is, people are still buying newspapers. Fact is, they're still making money, especially small local papers, even if it's less money as the market changes. That means layoffs, and it means some publications with too much overhead shut down.

But dead implies extinction, and I think it might be better to look at it through an evolutionary lens. That is, print must evolve, as journalism must.

A gadget like Amazon's Kindle (once streamlined and less expensive – compare 50 cents to $300) has the potential to transform the way people access the written word. It is conceivable, some time in the distant future, that the newspaper box is replaced with a downloading station near the parking meter – the special parking meter designed not only to take payment via mobile device, but to charge for the space above in addition to the right and left. Talk about double parking. 

But that hasn't happened yet, and it will take a while if it ever does.

Though small town newspapers beg to differ about the death of print media, as do collectors of worldwide subscription data who report record numbers, we saw a couple of print casualties in 2007.

But just like in any business, the inability to adapt is often what drives the extinction of a species. In this case, market forces, environments, and technologies are changing much more rapidly than society's habits, or even wants.

There are still romantics out there, even in this generation. People still like their morning newspaper with their coffee; they like to fold up a paper and tuck it under their arm; they still like the smell of books and the look of them on their bookshelves.

At some point, I imagine, there will be new-wave romantics who would rather irradiate themselves with technology than cut down trees to support an old-world way of doing things. Until then, there is market evolution.

The threats to print and long-form journalism are these: market saturation, which dilutes not just audiences, but advertisers; high overhead; craigslist; local search; babies being born right now.

The question, then, is about how to adapt. Some are cutting staff and other costs. Some are closing their print face and going online exclusively. Some are using their online income to supplement their print side. Some are cutting just how investigative they're going to get about news. Some are selling out to conglomerates who are better at adapting, have the resources to adapt, and who have lessened the competition for ad sales by buying up the competition.

And that's a whole mess of problems, especially for the purists – the high-minded academics suddenly very seriously considering government subsidies to save real journalism.

But there's something else going on that's interesting, and may play a role in how the industry evolves. Like I said, the days of print (on paper) are likely numbered, even if the number of days is larger than Silicon Valley might expect. But for long-form journalism there is hope without a government bailout.

Submitting to directories is a great way to build links and increase your search engine rankings. In semi-competitive industries it can produce great results. If you add article creation and social media marketing into the link building equation then you can achieve great results for any industry.

The Ultimate Guide to Directory Submissions

Free or Paid Directories?

When choosing directories going for the paid ones can be better, mainly because the links seem to last a lot longer. Many of the free directories seem to disappear or delete links after a year or so. However, there are a few free directories out there that should always be used - directories that have stood the test of time.

Niche or General Directories?

Submitting to a combination of both niche and general directories is usually a good idea.

For most industries there are a variety of niche directories out there - the best way to find them is through a search engine. Do a search on Google, MSN or Yahoo for directories in your niche area - those that come up in the first few pages of results are usually the best ones to use.

With general directories it's better to go for those that are more established. The older a directory is, the better.

PageRank - Does It Still Matter?

Because directories are generally quite large, they need a certain amount of PageRank to get all of their pages indexed properly. However a high PageRank isn't the be-all and end-all. Google's recent crackdown on directories has made visible PageRank even more irrelevant when it comes to choosing directories. There are directories out there that have no PageRank whatsoever that can offer value.

If a directory is ranking well in the search engines then you can rest assured that it has enough PageRank. If you're unsure then check how many links it has via Yahoo! Site Explorer or another link popularity checker.

Anchor Text

It's always best to get the main search phrases that you are targeting in the links to your site. However this isn't always possible and unfortunately many of the best directories won't let you do this. Sometimes you can get around this problem by slipping in a search phrase at the end of your company name.

Before submitting, have a good look around a directory and get a feel for what you can and can't get away with. Some directory owners will let you use a search phrase on its own, whereas others are very strict and will only use your business/website name. In between you have those where you might just be able to slip a search phrase in.

Doing your homework comes in handy - if you try to use a search phrase on its own and they change it to your business/website name then it's very unlikely you'll be able to get them to change it to your website name with a search phrase at the end. If you'd submitted it like that in the first place you may have got away with it.

Always try to get one of your search phrases in and vary the anchor text as much as possible - this will appear more natural to the search engines.

Varying Your Description

Many directories will provide you with your own page about your business. If you have the same description on every page across different directory websites, then many of these will be seen as duplicate content by the search engines and your links will get devalued.

To avoid this, write a unique and substantial description for every single directory (200+ characters works best). Make sure the descriptions accurately mirror your products and services and that they read well.

Deep Linking

Many directories allow you to add extra links directly to internal pages of your website. You should take turns in linking to different pages of your website using different variations of the phrases you're targeting on each page. Using the same anchor text to link to the same page over and over again will appear unnatural to the search engines and this could work against you.

How Many Directories Should You Submit To?

There's no fixed number of directories that you should get listed in. Work out a 12 month directory submission budget for each site and then do so many each week or month for the full duration.

When you're building links to your site via directories or any other method, you should do it over time. Submitting to 100 directories in a week and then forgetting about it won't be as effective as spreading the 100 directory submissions over a 3 month period.

The Top 10 Directories

Finally, here's a list of the top free and paid general directories to get you started.

5 of the best free directories include:

• Open Directory Project (http://dmoz.org/)
• World Site Index (http://www.worldsiteindex.com/)
• Domaining.in ( http://www.domaining.in/)
• Web World (http://www.webworldindex.com/)
• Search Sight (http://www.searchsight.com/)

5 of the best paid directories include:

• Yahoo! Directory (http://dir.yahoo.com/)
• Best of the Web (http://botw.org/)
• Business.com (http://www.business.com/)
• Aviva (http://www.avivadirectory.com/)
• Ezilon (http://www.ezilon.com/)

5 Tips for Writing WebsiteContent - That Gets Results!

I'm going to ask you to use your imagination for a moment.

Think of a topic that interests you. Maybe it's your favorite sport or hobby, for example. Now imagine that you're searching the Internet for information on that topic.

The first article you come across is related to the topic you're researching, but it doesn't offer much in the way of value. It's too general and full of pointless "fluff." It makes obvious points that a third-grader could grasp. And it fails to offer any related information or resources.

The second article you come across is much more in-depth. It explains several aspects of your topic with refreshing insight. It is helpful and useful, and it links out to many related articles and resources on the subject.

If you could only bookmark one of these pages for future reference, which one would it be? It would be the second page, right?

You, like most people, would probably prefer the second page to the first. It's an easy choice, and that's because the author of the second article understood (and delivered) the most important concept of website content development -- the value factor.

5 Benefits of High-Value Web Content

This kind of content has value for the reader, obviously. But it also benefits the author / publisher. Here are the top five benefits of creating high-value website content for your small business website:

1. It keeps people on your website longer.

2. It makes people more inclined to trust you.

3. It encourages readers to recommend the site to others.

4. It encourages other webmasters to link to your content.

5. It helps you improve your search engine ranking and visibility.

All of this sounds great, you say. But how do I create that kind of small business website content? Here are the top five guidelines for creating high-value website content.

5 Steps to High-Value Web Content

1. Choose the right author.

2. Choose the right topic.

3. Address all sides of the topic.

4. Add supporting graphics, pictures, etc.

5. Link to related resources, both on your site and elsewhere.

Let's look at each of these steps in greater detail.

1. Choose the Right Author

I once worked for a company who let their web programmers write the instructions for their online ordering process. Big mistake. If their audience were programmers as well, this might be okay. But most of their customers had limited technical skills. So when these people encountered online instructions such as "Validate parameters before advancing" ... the customers would often become dead in the water.

This is a prime example of choosing the wrong author for web writing. Sure, the programmers' input is important. After all, they built the thing. But they should not be the voice of customer guidance. A skilled web writer (someone with usability experience) would have "translated" these instructions to say something like "Please fill in all required information before moving to the next screen."

Here's the key to this. The best author for your small business website content is not always the person who knows the most about the product or service from a technical standpoint. Often, it's best to have an in-house writer who plays the go-between role of "consumer advocate," getting the information from one group and translating it for another group.

2. Choose the Right Topic

If your small business only offers one product or service, then that will likely be the topic of your web content. In this case, I would focus on choosing the right angle as well. Don't tell people what you want them to know -- this is an outdated way of thinking about public information, especially when it comes to small business website content. Instead, find out what people want to know about the types of products you offer, and use your web content to address those questions or concerns.

If you are writing web content for a company that has many products or services, you will have to spend more time choosing topics first and choosing your angle second. In this case, it becomes more about topic organization than anything. Large websites with many topics are ideally suited for a category and sub-category system: These are our products >> And this is product 'A' >> And this is a web page that explains product 'A' in detail.

3. Address All Sides of the Topic

Whether you're writing about one of your products, or you're creating a tutorial of some kind, you need to cover all the angles. There's nothing worse than website content that leaves the job only half-done, telling you why a certain thing is important but not pursuing that lead.

When you are close to a certain topic -- as is the case with people who create a product or service -- it's easy to assume everyone else understands it as well as you do. But the opposite is usually true, so you need to explain all sides of a topic when you write content for your small business website.

Want to keep your pages relatively short for easy reading? You can do that while still offering complete information. That's what hyperlinks are for!

4. Link to Related Resources

Here's the key to developing great content for your small business website. Try to create authority documents that others in your field would link to and recommend to others. One of the key criteria for a resource document is that it links to plenty of supporting information, both on the same website and elsewhere on the web.

In addition to being good for your readers, this kind of useful content will make other webmasters more inclined to link to your website. This adds to your link "popularity" and can further improve the search engine ranking of your small business website.

When writing a particular web page, try to think of it as "the ultimate guide to [blank]." This is the first step to creating the kind of authority documents that eventually dominate the search engines and drive endless web traffic for the authors. But it's rarely possible to create an "ultimate guide" to anything in just one page, so be liberal about linking to other sources on your own website and elsewhere (as long as they are not direct competitors).

5. Add Supporting Graphics, Pictures, Etc.

Reading online can be hard on the eyeballs. You can make the reader's job easier in two ways. First, you can format your content appropriately for web reading (short paragraphs, narrow text columns, lots of bullet points, headers, sub-headers, etc.). Secondly, you can add supporting images and helpful graphics.

Well-placed graphics can improve website content in a number of ways. Images are more enticing than text upon first glance, so they can help attract and retain readers. They also help you clarify your message with visual reinforcement.

Conclusion

I have a motto I use regarding website content. "If it's not worth putting online, don't put it online." This is my reminder to myself that I need to use the techniques outlined above to create superior website content. Because that's the kind of content that leads to online success. Apply these lessons to your small business website and watch your own success increase!