So, you have just started a web directory and spent a bundle on a very eye catching design. But somehow, you don't seem to get many visitors or users and your site isn't ranking good in the Search Engines. What do you do?
How about making your directory Search Engine friendly through Search Engine Optimization(SEO)? The best way to get visitors is by Search Engines. They are the number one source which can drive traffic to your directory. What you need is patience, hardwork and some little tips to help you get started.
So here is some onpage optimization tips for a web directory owner.
1. URL mod rewrite must be on. This option creates static URLs by removing the dynamic variables or session ids and since Search Engines don't like dynamic URLs, this will help in your site being indexed faster. And, static URLs usually rank higher than dynamic URLs. Another thing, dynamic URLs can cause duplicate content problem for your directory and hurt you in the rankings.
2. Have a good keyword rich title for your directory. This is very important for Search Engine rankings as they place relevance on titles tags. Try to use the keywords first on your title tag, then your directory name.
3. Good Keywords in your categories and subcategories which will produce meaningful URLs which again helps in ranking for these terms. Remember, URLs are important and you should use them effectively to get good rankings. Ensure you do not have "and" or "or" in the category names as they are useless and Search Engine spider don't use them.
4. Avoid having your category links too deep. Search Engines don't like crawling into levels to find your listings and having subdirectories which are too deep will affect your rankings. For me, the most you should have is 5 directory levels deep unless it is really necessary.
5. No broken links. Broken links prevents Search Engine spiders from indexing your directory completely.
6. No dead end pages. Make sure every page you have is linked to your main directory page or some other page. Just like broken links, they disrupt the Search Engine spiders from finishing or doing their job, which is to index your site.
7. Good descriptions, at least 300 words or more. Make sure your visitors submit meaningful descriptions with good keywords and without any spelling mistakes, so that your directory wont look like a link farm to Search Engines. A good description makes your directory listing look professional and helps your image.
8. Uptime is very important. What's the point of having all the SEO you can do when Search Engine spiders can't even find your site because it is down. Get a good and reliable webhost with a solid uptime.
9. Sitemaps can really help spiders navigate your directory so create them and submit to the Search Engines. This is especially true if you have a lot of categories in your directory.
10. Meta Tags are less important, but if you can, make sure the meta tags are relevant to your category. Another thing, try to have different meta keywords and meta description per category instead of using the main directory's.
This onpage optimization article only covers what you can do on your own web directory, it doesn't cover offpage optimization which can be very effective in getting good rankings as well. But if you use both offpage and onpage optimization, you should get even better results.
