I'm starting a new web site and want to get on as many quality free
links and directories as possible to enhance my position with search
engines such as Google.   Can you recommend someone who provides this
service?

---

Request for Question Clarification by answerguru-ga on 03 Jul 2003 14:07 PDT

Hi judi7127,

Unfortunately its not quite that simple to enhance your position on
the Google search engine - not only do you have to have quality links
on your site, but other "quality" sites should link to yours as well.
Furthermore, there is no single set of general directories that one
can join to enhance their position (otherwise everyone would do it).

If you were to provide some more details about your site, myself or
another researcher may be able to provide some relevant suggestions.

answerguru-ga

---

Request for Question Clarification by aceresearcher-ga on 03 Jul 2003 14:38 PDT

Greetings, Judi!

The best way to improve your position with Google is to get listings
on pages that have a Page Rank of 4 or higher, and that don't have
huge number of links to other sites on the same page.

Bear in mind that it's estimated that 80 to 90% of Search Engine
traffic which comes to websites comes from Google. That means that
getting listed on a lot of small Search Engines, while it probably
won't hurt you, will probably not help you much, either. There are
service which promise you listings on lots of Search Engines and
Directories for a fee. What they don't tell you is that the listings
which they can GUARANTEE you are will be on sites with pretty low
traffic.

So where you really want to spend your time and energy is on getting
good, quality links, rather than massive numbers of pages that won't
help your Google Page Rank at all.

I would be willing to help you with suggestions for good places to get
links, as well as other suggestions if your website has already been
designed. If you would like me to do that, provide a good description
of the website's main purpose and content, or a link to it if you have
the website already up and running. If it's not up yet, but you
already have purchased the registration for your URL, be sure to post
the URL.

Best Wishes,

aceresearcher

---

Clarification of Question by judi7127-ga on 03 Jul 2003 15:13 PDT

The web site is called lacostacardco.com.  It is not up on google yet,
but it is out there.  It is a site that sells photo note cards,
particularly of sunsets, landscapes and flowers.  I have spent the
better part of two days trying to figure out how to get to links and
directories.  Of course, I went to the google directory under Photo,
Shopping>Gofts>Stationery>Greeting Cards>Photo and checked out all of
those sites.  I also went to google and typed in "photo note cards"
and then went to the top sites and found some interesting links but
did not know if they were good ones...how to judge?  I never imagined
this part of the process!  It's like having a baby, you don't focus on
after the birth what you are supposed to dowith the baby, you just
focus on the birth! Thanks for your help!!!

---

Request for Question Clarification by aceresearcher-ga on 03 Jul 2003 15:15 PDT

Judi,

Can you tell me what submission(s), if any, you have done on site so far?

Thanks,

ace

---

Clarification of Question by judi7127-ga on 03 Jul 2003 15:46 PDT

Well, I think (this is how stupid I am) I linked into
http://dmoz.org/shopping/directories
Top:Shopping:Gifts:Stationery:Greeting Cards:Photo

---

Request for Question Clarification by aceresearcher-ga on 03 Jul 2003 16:56 PDT

Judi,

When did you submit your site to dmoz, and how did you do it?

---

Clarification of Question by judi7127-ga on 03 Jul 2003 17:58 PDT

I think (!) I went to the Open Directory Project on Netscape and went
into it that way.  Unfortunately, I didn't write down the path I took
because I was clicking and clicking all day long.  I did that
yesterday afternoon.   .....?

---

Clarification of Question by judi7127-ga on 04 Jul 2003 08:59 PDT

Have not received an answer from last communication yesterday with
acereasearcher-ga.

---

Request for Question Clarification by aceresearcher-ga on 04 Jul 2003 12:30 PDT

Hi Judi!

I can't tell from your website in what country you are located. It's
July 4th here in the U.S., so I'm not doing a whole lot of work on
Google Answers today. I *have* started a list of suggestions for sites
on which you might request links, but of course I wouldn't post an
Answer for you until I have a full Answer.

I know that as a new webmaster, you're anxious, but remember that on
the web, things usually operate in terms of many days, weeks, or even
months, rather than in hours. For instance, the request you sent to
DMOZ on Wednesday will likely take up to 3 weeks (or even possibly
more) to be processed. Requests for links from other webmasters may
take at least a couple of weeks as well, and many of those people may
not work on their sites on holidays or weekends, either.

One think about which I do want to ask you, since it's not clear from
your website where you are located, but you need to include shipping
information, perhaps via a button above or below your "Contact Us"
button. Unless you're willing to ship to any country in the world,
you're going to want to specify to what countries you WILL ship -- or
if you WILL ship anywhere, you will want to say that, too.

ace

---

Clarification of Question by judi7127-ga on 04 Jul 2003 14:25 PDT

I am in the USA, Happy Fourth of July.  I appreciate your responses
and hope to continue to hear from you.  Thank you for the suggestin re
the shipping chargesand out of country shipping costs. The info is on
the home page and paypal automatically adds shipping charges and tax
to the total.  Have a

Greetings, Judi!

I hope that you had a great Fourth of July weekend!

In finding places for you to list your website, we'll start with the
big Search Engines and Directories.

Be sure to follow their instructions; for instance, some Engines
request that you submit only your top-level URL rather than every one
of your pages. Failure to follow the instructions can result in
lowered rankings or even in being blacklisted from a Search Engine.

Just so you have them, here are the normal instructions for submission
to DMOZ (but you DON'T want to do that again, since you have just
submitted your site to them):
   
  DMOZ (Directory Mozilla/Open Directory Project):
Category - Shopping: Gifts: Stationery: Greeting Cards: Photo  
http://dmoz.org/Shopping/Gifts/Stationery/Greeting_Cards/Photo

A DMOZ listing is **critical**, because it will get you on ODP partner
sites including AOL Search, Ask Jeeves & Teoma, DirectHit, Dogpile,
Excite, HotBot, Google, Infospace, Lycos, Netscape Search, Webcrawler,
as well as HUNDREDS of other sites:
http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Searching/Directories/Open_Directory_Project/Sites_Using_ODP_Data/full-index.html

And here are the submission URLs for the rest of the Big Guys:
---------------------------------------------
  Google:     
://www.google.com/addurl.html    
  (Be aware that it may take anywhere from 1 to 3 months for your site
to start showing up on Google; however, since Google also uses DMOZ as
a guide to its indexing efforts, your previous submission to DMOZ
might speed that up a little.)
---------------------------------------------
  HotBot: (you will need to go through free Registration first)
http://ldbreg.lycos.com/cgi-bin/mayaLogin?m_PR=29&m_CBURL=http://insite.lycos.com/searchservices/lite?step1.asp
---------------------------------------------
  AllTheWeb:    
http://www.alltheweb.com/add_url.php    
---------------------------------------------
  AltaVista:    
http://addurl.altavista.com/addurl/new    
---------------------------------------------
  Zeal (LookSmart/MSN free submission w/free registration)    
http://www.zeal.com/users/register.jhtml    
---------------------------------------------
  About.com:
You should e-mail Frank Fiore, the Guide of the following category,
and nicely request that your site be included in About.com (it may be
a long shot, but it's worth a try)
http://onlineshopping.about.com/cs/greetingcards

Frank Fiore's biography:
http://onlineshopping.about.com/mbiopage.htm

And carefully follow the submission instructions on:
http://onlineshopping.about.com/mpremail.htm


---------------------------------------------
Paid Inclusion Directories and Search Engines
---------------------------------------------
I would try all the free options first, then wait a month or two. If
you still don't feel that you're getting the traffic that you need,
then you *might* consider these options:
---------------------------------------------
Inktomi Partners (through PositionTech)
$39.00 per year for the first URL
Includes: About.com, eSpotting, goo, ICQ, LookSmart, Mobil.com, MSN,
Overture, and Terra.
http://www.positiontech.com/inktomi/index.htm
-----------------------------------------------------
FAST Partners (through PositionTech)
$34.00 per year for the first URL
http://www.positiontech.com/fast/index.htm
Includes: AllTheWeb, BTLookSmart, Dogpile, Excite, Hispavista,
Infospace, Inwind, Italia Online, Jubii, Lycos Asia, Lycos Europe,
M-Web, MetaCrawler, Scandinavia Online, SinoHome, T-Online, Telus, Ya,
Webcrawler.

While this list might sound impressive, bear in mind that you can
submit to AllTheWeb for free; Dogpile, Excite, Metacrawler, T-Online,
Webcrawler can all be acquired just by getting an Infospace listing
(and some or most of those by getting a DMOZ listing); and most of the
rest are international sites, so if you don't plan to ship
internationally, they won't do much good.
-----------------------------------------------------
  Yahoo!
(free unless you're a for-profit business, then it's $299/year) 
I don't recommend this option for businesses, because you can get the
same Yahoo! listing through Inktomi via Overture (see Inktomi info at
PositionTech link above).
Category - http://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Gifts_and_Occasions/Greeting_Cards
http://add.yahoo.com/fast/add?8115717
-----------------------------------------------------

Be wary of using a service that advertises "submission to hundreds (or
thousands) of Search Engines and Directories". Most of these sites are
barely used by web surfers, and you don't have any control over where
links to your site are being placed.

It is estimated that 80-90% of Search Engine traffic to websites comes
through Google. By getting a DMOZ listing, which will trickle down to
Google and all those hundreds of DMOZ partner sites in the list to
which I linked above, you would be guaranteeing your site a VERY wide
exposure.

Again, with Web Search listings, the key word is, unfortunately --
patience. However, if you follow the submission instructions listed
above, I believe that within 2-3 months you should see some real
results.

Since your site is targeted to a very few items, something you may
also want to consider is increasing the variety of items which you
have for sale, to increase the possibility that your site will meet a
web shopper's criteria.


Before Rating my Answer, if you have any questions about the above
information, please post a Request for Clarification, and I will be
delighted to see what I can do for you.

Best Wishes on improved Search Results and increased web traffic to
your site!

aceresearcher

---

Clarification of Answer by aceresearcher-ga on 07 Jul 2003 12:00 PDT

Hi again, Judi!

While it is outside of your original request for a list of free links
and directories, I have come up with some ideas to help make your site
more friendly to Google and other Search Engines. These should help
improve your site's placement in Search Engine Results Rankings.


1. Fix the missing "column.gif" spacer next to your Shipping
Information. The file does not currently exist on your server. You can
either upload it, or substitute "images/spacer.gif" to achieve the
same effect.


2. Move your shipping cost information to a subpage. On that page,
include the information as to whether you will ship outside the USA.
Add a button entitled "Shipping" to your left-hand menu.


3. Modify your Page Titles. These are something to which Google and
other Search Engines give foremost consideration, so you will want to
make the most of them. The closer a word is to the beginning of the
Title, the more importance is assigned to it.
My suggestions:

<title>LaCostaCardCo.com - Photo Note Cards Featuring Sunsets,
Landscapes & Flowers</title>
(the current lack of spaces around the dash prevent
"LaCostaCardCo.com" and "Photo" from being recognized as separate
words)
http://www.lacostacardco.com

<title>Photo Greeting Cards of Southern California Coastline
Sunsets</title>
http://www.lacostacardco.com/sunset_photos.cfm

<title>Custom Photographs and Note Cards of United States Travel
Landscapes</title>
http://www.lacostacardco.com/landscape_photos.cfm

<title>Photographic Note Cards of Flowers by Jessie Hinrichs</title>
http://www.lacostacardco.com/flower_photos.cfm

<title>Contact the Best of California Photographers, LaCosta Card
Co</title>
http://www.lacostacardco.com/contact.html

<title>LaCosta Card Company Photo Note Cards Shipping
Information</title>
http://www.lacostacardco.com/shipping.html


4. Input your URL to the SearchEngineWorld Spider Simulator at
http://www.searchengineworld.com/cgi-bin/sim_spider.cgi

This shows what your site looks like to Google and other Search
Engines:
-------------------------------------------------------
  Spider title 
LaCostaCardCo.com-Photo Note Cards Featuring Sunsets, Landscapes &
Flowers
  Spider meta desc
LaCostaCardCo.com offers original photo note cards featuring sunsets,
landscapes, and flowers.
  Spider meta keywords
photo note cards, original photographs, note cards, greeting cards,
landscapes, sunsets, flowers, images for sale, photos, Jessie
Hinrichs, california photographers, online photo collections, southern
california coastline, custom photos, United States travel photos
  Spider Text 
LaCostaCardCo.com: A Gallery of Original Photographs on Note Cards
Featuring a Selection of Sunsets, Landscapes, and Flowers Home Page
Sunset Gallery Landscape Gallery Flower Gallery Contact Us   Sunset
Gallery Landscape Gallery Flower Gallery Welcome To LaCostaCardCo.com
Please take time to enjoy the inspiring beauty of these photographic
note cards. The glory of a sunset, the splendor of a flower and the
majesty of a landscape are enhanced digitally rather than in the dark
room. I take my camera everywhere! Many of the sweeping sunsets are
local scenes overlooking the Pacific coastline. The flowers are
photographed in Southern California, in my own garden and the
beautiful gardens of friends and neighbors. Landscapes are from my
travels in the U.S. and Australia. Each 3.5 x 5 photograph is custom
made from your order, trimmed and pasted onto a 4 x 6 blank note card,
titled and signed. Individual cards are protected by separate plastic
sleeves when shipped. Individual cards are $3.25 each. For each order
of fifteen (15) cards, I will send you one (1) card free of charge.
Please contact Jes@lacostacardco.com for price information on
quantities of forty (40) or more cards. Shipping/Handling: Up to
$9.99: $2 $10-$49.99: $4 $50-$99.99: $6 $100-$199: $8 $200-$299: $10
Shipping/handling fees for orders over $300 will be charged according
to current USPS and packaging fees. The selection of photographs will
change seasonally, so please visit our gallery again in the near
future. Custom made photos in larger sizes are also available for
purchase. Thank you for choosing LaCostaCardCo.com. Enjoy! All
photographic images on this site are copyright protected. Web Design
By Enchanted Media
-------------------------------------------------------
Spidered Links 
 = spider this link with current settings. 
 = keyword density analyze this link. 
Link 
    http://www.lacostacardco.com/ 
    http://www.lacostacardco.com/sunset_photos.cfm 
    http://www.lacostacardco.com/landscape_photos.cfm 
    http://www.lacostacardco.com/flower_photos.cfm 
    http://www.lacostacardco.com/contact.html 
    http://www.lacostacardco.com/sunset_photos.cfm 
    http://www.lacostacardco.com/landscape_photos.cfm 
    http://www.lacostacardco.com/flower_photos.cfm 
    http://www.lacostacardco.com/sunset_photos.cfm 
    http://www.lacostacardco.com/landscape_photos.cfm 
    http://www.lacostacardco.com/flower_photos.cfm 
    http://www.enchantedmedia.com/ 
-------------------------------------------------------

Now input your URL to the SearchEngineWorld Keyword Density Analyzer
at
http://www.searchengineworld.com/cgi-bin/kwda.cgi
-------------------------------------------------------

Google and most of the other major Search Engines no longer look at
<meta> keywords and description, because webmasters were packing these
with hundreds of unrelated terms in an attempt to artificially improve
their Search Results Rankings. Google now looks at your *text* -- so
you need to make sure that your text contains all your most important
"keywords" at least 2 or 3 times.

Of the words and phrases included in your <meta> keywords, you can see
how many times each actually appears in your page:

0 photo note cards
2 original photographs
0 note cards
0 greeting cards
5 landscapes
5 sunsets
5 flowers
0 images for sale
4 photos
0 Jessie Hinrichs
0 california photographers
0 online photo collections
0 southern california coastline
2 custom photos
0 United States travel photos  

So you can see that you may want to re-write your text to include the
above words and phrases, and to include another occurrence of words
which appear only 0 or 1 times, according to the keyword analyzer.
Some of this can be achieved through the use of "alt" labels, as
described in the next item.


5. Google and many otherAdd "alt" labels to more of your graphics --
here are my suggestions:
images/design5_r2_c1.gif
  alt="Original Custom Photo Greeting Cards of the Southern California
Coastline"
images/design5_r3_c1.gif
  alt="Images for Sale by the best of California Photographers, Jessie
Hinrichs"
images/design5_r3_c2.gif
  alt="Greeting Cards featuring custom photos from LaCosta Card
Company"
images/welcome.gif
  alt="A Gallery of Original Photographs on Note Cards Featuring a
Selection of Sunsets, Landscapes, and Flowers"
images/sunset.gif
  alt="Photo Note Cards of Southern California Sunsets"
images/landscape.gif
  alt="United States Travel Photographs of Landscapes"
images/flowers.gif
  alt="Greeting Cards featuring Original Photographs of Flowers by
Jessie Hinrichs"
images/design5_r3_c4.gif
  alt="Custom Photographic Note Cards and Envelopes by Jessie
Hinrichs"
images/design5_r5_c1.gif
  alt="Online Photo Collections of Sunsets, Landscapes, and Flowers"
images/design5_r6_c1.gif
  alt="Enlargements of Original Photographs of the Southern California
Coastline"

and change the following "alt" labels"
images/design5_r1_c1.gif
  alt="LaCostaCardCo.com: A Gallery of Original Photographs on Photo
Note Cards Featuring Southern California Coastline Sunsets,
Landscapes, and Flowers"
off_home.gif
  alt="LaCosta Card Co Home Page"
off_sunsets.gif
  alt="Southern California Coastline Sunsets Gallery"
off_landscapes.gif
  alt="Southern California Coastline Landscapes Gallery"
off_flowers.gif
  alt="Southern California Flowers Gallery"
off_contact.gif"
  alt="Contact LaCosta Card Co for photo note cards"


6. If your contract with Enchanted Media does not specify that you
have to allow them to place a link to their site on your main page,
ask them to remove that link; it dilutes your Page Rank.


I hope that this additional information helps to shoot your site up in
the rankings for your special key words!

Regards,

ace

---

Request for Answer Clarification by judi7127-ga on 07 Jul 2003 12:32 PDT

THANK YOU!!!That is alot of information,some of which I don't quite
understand but I will sort through it in the next few days, weeks,
months!  I really appreciate the input and stuff about page rank which
I just couldn't get before.  Great job and thanks again.

---

Clarification of Answer by aceresearcher-ga on 07 Jul 2003 14:58 PDT

Judi,

I am delighted that you were pleased with the information I developed for you!

Thank you for the excellent rating and the generous tip.

I look forward to seeing your site climb in the Search Engine Results Rankings!

Best Wishes,

ace

This researcher is thorough, thoughtful, knowledgable and the answer
was extremely detailed and helpful.