A funny thing happened the other day on my way to successfully list my company on the major search engines. Not being a novice to the search engine listing game, but never claiming to be an expert, I read with interest an e-zine on obtaining search engine position. The article was well written and basically very helpful. But what I did next was very interesting.

Viewing Source Code

I went to the Author's web site and viewed his source code to see if he practiced what he preached. To see the source code of a web page all you have to do is select the "View" button in Microsoft Explorer and click on "Source". Here you can view the Title, Description and Keyword Meta files that are so critical to high search engine position.

Indeed, the author did exactly what he was recommending to his clients. His meta files were text book.. The HTML code had the word search engine listed in the meta title section once, in the meta description once and in the meta keywords three times. The code was very clean and should produce good results using keyword "search engine"

So the next thing I did was go to three main search engines, AltaVista, Northern Light and Lycos. I typed in the keyword "search engine" and what do you think happened?

Well, none of the three search engines listed the Author's Web site in any of the first three pages of results. And everyone tells you that if you are not on the first couple of search results pages, well…just forget about being found.

Directory Listings

This brings us to the point of this article. Search engines are not the only resource on which to list your site. Another option is purchasing a listing with a directory. A directory is a Web site where users search a limited number of web sites, not the entire web.

Web directories include http://www.GoTo.com, http://www.Stopsurfing.com, and http://www.b2bnow.com to name a few. To find other directories you can go to http://lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~matsuoka/search.html. This is a pretty comprehensive listing, some sites are outdated, but it is a good place to start.

Set a Budget for Directories

The next step you need to do is set a budget. Decide before hand how much you want to spend on the directory. Yes, spend money! Not everything on the Internet is free. Yes, you can register free listings on the search engines but you can never guarantee that you will get a high listing or even be listed.

So invest a little money with a directory so you don't have to keep registering with the search engines every month. Your time is valuable, so spend a couple of hundred dollars on directories and just relax. This way you know that you will have some guaranteed visibility on the Web.

Keywords

Next, you need to select a keyword or keywords that you want your website listed under. Select keywords that best describe the product that you are selling. If you are selling camping equipment, you may want to select the keywords "camping equipment" and "sleeping bag".

Two Type of Directories

There are two types of pay-for-listing directories. The first like GoTo.com, allows you to set a bid price per click through. You are ranked by bid, the higher you bid, the higher you appear on the search results.

The other type like, Stopsurfing.com, charges a flat price for a year. You pay one set fee no matter how many hits you get.

Just Click It

Whatever you decide to do about directory listings, Just Click It and move on to taking care of your current customers. The Internet moves at warp speed. You need to get visibility now. Don't delay, get some directory listings in place while you are waiting for your "Free" search engine listings to get your Web traffic.

About the author: James M. Duerr. He is the president, of http://www.stopsurfing.com a Family Safe e-Shopping directory. He credits his web marketing knowledge with on-the-job training, having developed and operated a successful e-commerce site http://www.buy-okidata.com. He resides in beautiful Corpus Christi, Texas with his wife and two kids.