subject: Website Promotion Using Directory Links [print this page] By listing your Home Page URL in website or article directories your website promotion strategy will come to fruition, and earn you a leap in the search engine listings. This strategy will help you in two ways:a) If your website is relatively new, you get the benefit of rapid search engine visits and consequent indexing and listings. Without website promotion, or some means of letting Google, for example, know that your website exists, you may wait a long time before it indexes your web pages. However, links to your website, or web pages within website or article directories, can accelerate that process, because search engines visit these frequently and will be led straight to your website from the links.b) You will receive a share of the Google PageRank (PR) of the page that publishes your article or website URL, unless the directory includes the 'nofollow' attribute in your link. The 'nofollow' attribute will stop you getting a share of the PageRank of the page on which your article is published - so keep an eye out for these - though some directories will give you the link in exchange for a payment. That is generally worth paying for.Another reason why you should use website promotion with directory links is that your link is liable to attract visitors, and a click gives you one more visitor to your website. In the case of a link directory, the link will be the website listing itself, and for an article, the link is contained in a section known as the 'author's resource', generally found at the end of the article.Writing articles is a particularly useful way of website promotion because you use anchor text for your links, regarded by Google as offering a better way of optimizing the article than just a straight URL. The text used in the link should have a connection with the topic of the article or to the page in your website that readers will be sent to when they click on it.While website directories generally publish the URL of your domain, an article can be published in an article directory with the URL of any page in your website you want to promote. It is deep links such as these that can make a real difference to the prominence of your website on search engine listings.How do you promote your website with directory links? What are the mechanics? The procedure is really quite simple, and we shall discuss it here, first with link directories and then with article directories.Website Promotion using Link DirectoriesWhen you register with a link directory, you will be asked to generate a user name and password. You will then normally be sent a confirmation email that will confirm your registration once you click on the link it contains. That is to prevent spambots from creating mass registrations with the directory.You will then be taken to the login page, where the user name and password you provided can be used to log into the directory. You can then enter the details of your website. Not all directories request the same information, and you could be asked for the title or the name of your site, its URL and likely a description of the contents of the site or its purpose. The site listing will then include these details. Many will ask you for a list of keywords that can be used in their own directory search engine, so your page is found by anybody using the directory search facility with a keyword on your list.Then you receive a link to your website from the directory. Not only might that increase your Google PageRank, but the link will also be followed by Google the next time it spiders the directory so that your website will also be visited. Also, real people might read your description and decide to check out your site, so link directories can also generate traffic. Your description should be designed to impress the reader.Website Promotion using Article DirectoriesAn article directory is somewhat different. Here, you must first write an article that relates to the theme of your niche or website. The same basic procedure will be used to register with an article directory, although in this case it is unlikely to ask you for your website details.The article should be entered in text format into the provided boxes: generally a box for the title, one for the article body and one for the resource. The last two mentioned can be combined in many directories, the resource appearing right after the text of the article. You will also have a box for a summary of the article that will appear in the article directory, and perhaps a list of keywords will be requested.Article marketing, as this is know, offers many benefits to the promotion of your web pages - far too many to detail here, although it is definitely a very effective means of advertising your website around the internet. You receive traffic through people reading the article and then clicking on your link to learn more, from improved Google PageRank and also from others copying your article, complete with resource, to use as content on their own websites.Website promotion by means of directory listings and links is one the most powerful means of promoting your website, and also one of the least expensive, and the vast majority of people that use it are impressed with the results they get. It is simple to do and can be carried out in no time at all, and although many directories make a small charge for this (though many are free),it offers an excellent return in terms of traffic or PageRank promotion.
