Did you know that recent estimates
show that Yahoo is currently
capturing an amazing 40% of all
search engine traffic online? Do you
know what this means? It means that
almost 1 out of every 2 people who
do searches on the Internet use
Yahoo, and everyone on the Internet
has done searches at one time or
another.
Nothing in the world should be
clearer to anyone with a website
after reading the above figures --
you need your site listed on Yahoo.
A.S.A.P.
RECAP
If your site is not listed in the
YAHOO INDEX, you are losing lots of
potential customers to competitors
whot are listed with Yahoo. And with
the amount of visitors Yahoo can
send you even with an average
listing... this could amount to
hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars
of lost profits.
Note - being listed under "webpages"
does not mean you are listed in
Yahoo. It means you are listed with
Google. Yahoo gets its "webpage"
results from Google.
How to submit to Yahoo:
First you have to determine the
scope of your site. Is your site
commercial or non-commercial?
Commercial sites that want to be
listed must use "Business Express"
when submitting. This used to cost
$199, however the price has risen to
$299 a year.
"Business Express" what is
it? Good question and one that many
people ask. Well, it's basically the
same as free submit except that with
business express your site is
guaranteed to be reviewed within a
week's time. However, please be
aware that it does not guarantee
that your site will be accepted and
added to the Yahoo index. If your
site is rejected, Yahoo will allow
you to appeal for free within a
certain time period (usually 30
days) of being informed of your
rejection. Also, Yahoo staff usually
tells you the reason you have been
rejected. Examine these reasons; fix
any problems and resubmit after a
week or so.
If your site is a non-commercial
site, you will still be able to
submit for free, but a review could
take as long as 8 weeks or might
never happen at all.
Before you submit, make sure your
site is 100% ready. Under
construction pages need not apply to
Yahoo because they are not going to
get in. Your site should be
aesthetically pleasing to the
reviewer. It should be quick loading
and should have lots of content.
OK; let's get started. How does
Yahoo return results? Search results
on Yahoo are determined by words
that appear within these four areas:
1) Category
2) Title
3) Description
4) URL
These sites are then sorted by
relevance using an automated
algorithm.
I will now go through these four
different factors and how to
optimize your submittal for each
one. First up category selection:
Many people don't realize this but
when someone searches for a term(s)
on Yahoo, it's algorithm searches
through the category name also. For
example, visit www.yahoo.com and
look at the results for a search on
'Internet Marketing'. Notice that in
each listing these words are
highlighted if they are in the name
of the category. The top listing has
the most occurrences of these words
between its title, description, URL
and words in the category it's in.
You should remember this when
submitting to your category. To
establish what category you are
going to submit to, you should do a
search for one or two of your
keywords and see what categories
come up. But which of these
categories do you submit to?
Since most referrals to sites
from Yahoo come from the search
results and not from people visiting
certain categories, it is wise and
best (in most cases) to submit to a
very specific category with lots of
keywords in the category name. To
see this strategy in practice
revisit the results page for
"Internet marketing" on Yahoo.com.
Notice that the top ranked site is
in a category with lots of
keywords:- Internet, Business,
Advertising and Web. These along
with various keywords in the title,
description and URL combine to give
this site a pretty good chance at
ranking well on a few good keywords
and phrases. Therefore, category
names are just like having more
titles and descriptions. Note
- if you are a regional operation
try to pick a category with the name
of your state or province in it.
This will help you get targeted
local visitors from Yahoo.
As for the title, Yahoo insists
that you use your official business
or website name when applying to
them, if you submit some keyword
rich title they won't even look
twice at your application. You
should take this into account when
choosing a domain name/official
website name.
Yahoo favors short titles. This
stems from the fact that the shorter
the title is, the less likely they
will be to edit it. This means less
work for them. However, if you
follow the above guidelines and
Yahoo's own onsite guidelines,
chances are you won't be edited very
much.
The description part is the
tricky part. The Web site
description posted with your URL is
a big factor in how your site will
rank once it's listed in the
directory.
You have to submit a description
which has your main keywords in it.
Make it sound very appealing to
potential visitors at the same time.
However, you must avoid anything
that resembles hype and bragging,
For example - number 1 site on the
net for... The best on the web
for...
Yahoo will either edit this kind
of language to something that
doesn't benefit you at all or
worse... just move on to the next
application. If they do edit it, you
can bet your keywords won't appear
in the final listing. For these
reasons, it is important to get it
right first time.
The description should be concise
and based on facts. Most
importantly, it should include your
most important keywords whenever
possible. Do not exaggerate what is
located on your site. Remember a
real person reviews your site and if
you exaggerate, your site will not
be approved. It's as simple as that.
The length of the description
should be about 10 - 15 words.
Note: On the Yahoo submittal
form, they say 25 is the maximum.
Never go near this number; they are
sure to edit it and probably remove
your keywords. Refer to Yahoo's own
words: "Please be brief"
SIDENOTE
Sometimes people email me asking
this question: "Does the title and
description that I submit to Yahoo
have to be the same as the Meta
description tag and title tag on my
site". The simple answer is: NO!
Have an "about us" page on your
site - Yahoo likes to know who it is
dealing with. On this page describe
what you do honestly and also post
the physical address of your
organization.
IMPORTANT
Don't Spam Yahoo. If they notice
you submitting your site more than
every 2 or 3 months, they will just
forget about you and move on.
Good luck in your quest for Yahoo
success!
About The Author
James D. Brausch is the Vice
President of Marketing for
Target Blaster, Inc., an
Internet Marketing firm specializing
in targeted traffic.