I wouldn’t base any SEO or internet marketing campaign only around website directories, but there are some essential directories that I think every business website should be listed in.   These are all free directories that are pretty simple to get listed in.  I have included my favorites below:

-DMOZ - Great directory, but it takes a long time to get listed.
-Jayde - Very quick and easy submission process
-Kudzu - Instant approval
-Merchant Circle -Instant approval and very quick indexing in Google.
-Yelp - Based around user reviews
-Turnpike -Simple design but a good free directory
-Little Web Directory - Easy and fast submission process

It is important to understand the basics of search, including the difference between paid and unpaid search, before starting any SEO campaign, especially a campaign that has both paid and unpaid elements.

Terminology To Know:
Organic: Un-paid search results
PPC: Pay-per click
SERPS: Search engine results page

Pay-Per Click Results:
PPC results are advertisements.  If you run a PPC campaign, you pay everytime a user clicks your ad and follows it to your website.  You usually choose relevant search terms to bid on, and your ad is displayed when a user searchs that term within Google, Yahoo, or other search engines. PPC results are displayed above and to the right of organic listings in both Yahoo and Google.  Google calls these ’sponsored links’ while Yahoo uses the term ’sponsored results’.

Organic Results:
Organic listings are un-paid results that are typically displayed in the main column of the serps.  These results are ranked by a number of factors used to determine their relevance to the search term.  Some of these factors include: keyword density, title tag relevance, incoming links, Google Page Rank and meta tags.  Organic results can contain map results, product results, blog results and video results.

The Above Image Shows How Google Displays Organic & PPC Results

There is a lot of talk lately about business and corporate blogging.  To a small business owner who just wants to sell more, a blog may not at first appear like a great idea.  I want to take a minute to go over the very basics of how business blogging should be done and how it can drive more traffic for your business.

How To Blog For Business:
When blogging for business, it is important not to come across like a desperate car salesman. Write posts answering common questions your core customer has. Do not write posts that say nothing more then “buy this product” or “you need this.”  By answering questions and writing other posts that help people, you establish yourself as an expert in your field. Once the customer reading your blog sees how knowledgable you are in your field, you no longer need to say ‘buy, buy, buy’ because when the customer is ready to purchase, they know who you are and will come to you.

How Can A Blog Drive More Traffic To My Website & My Business
Blogs can drive traffic and increase sales in number of ways.  Your blog should have a prominent link to your website and should contain your contact information.

Blogs tend to have more content and newer content than traditional websites.  Search engines like constantly changing content and sites that have lots of good content.  This will help your blog and your business get into the search engines for important keyterms for which your traditional website might not rank. 

Blogs also tend to have a certain social quality that traditional websites don’t have.  You may be missing customers and sales because you cannot be found on social and bookmarking sites like Facebook, Digg & Delicious.

You may have noticed the way that Yahoo, Google and other search engines serve up content is different now than how it was a few years ago.  In fact, it is ever changing.  Whereas once there was a seperate engine for web, images, blogs, products and video, now they are all appearing in the main web results.  To be really successful within search engines, we have to attack this from all angles.  Blogging is just another angle that will help your business.

In order to get your business on the web and see results, you are going to need four essential things:

• A Domain Name
• Web Hosting
• A Site Design
• Maintenance

Domain Name

Your domain name is your company’s address on the web. An example would be www.example.com. Short domain names are generally better than long ones. You can check for available names at www.ConnectivityPro.com. You can also purchase them there. If you need help purchasing a domain name, we can help you.

Hosting

After you have a domain name, your website cannot be accessed until you have hosting. When you buy hosting, you are buying space on the web. It is important to put your site on a reliable server. Our hosting has a 99.9% uptime guarantee. This means your site will almost never go down.

Design

A strong site design is important to the success of bringing your business online. You want a website that reflects your company image. The design needs to be clearly organized and have accurate information that is easy to understand. We offer a variety of design options for small businesses, ranging from simple online storefronts to complex sites with shopping carts, forms, and just about anything you can dream up. Our rates are extremely reasonable, and we pride ourselves on excellent client support, both during and after contract.

Maintenance

After your site goes online, you should have it updated regularly. Whether you want to update information or add pages, it is important that your website have a current feel. Updates are also an important factor in search engine optimization. Search engines favor sites with content that is regularly updated. You can pay a little more initially and have us develop an administration area where you can easily manage your site and update it yourself, or you can pay per update. All e-commerce sites come with an administrative backend that allows you to add products and to manage orders, payments, and shipping.