Re: Yahoo!

From: Robert J. Woodhead <trebor_at_animeigo.com>
Date: Wed 29 Nov 2000 11:32:35 -0500

BARBARA SYBAL <gfx_at_gfxinc.com> WROTE:
> My site is listed in Yahoo!, but unfortunately it's
> placed so deep into a regional category that I hardly
> receive a blip of visitors from them.

One's position in the Yahoo directory is largely
irrelevant, because most Yahoo clickthroughs are the
result of a search, not a browse to a category. What
counts more than anything is that your title and
description contain the important keywords so they come
up on relevant searches.

With a geographically limited business it is crucial to
have your city in the title or description because
this is how almost all searchers will try and limit
their search. Yahoo edits these out if you try, but
this is not a bad thing because Yahoo takes into
account all the words in the category path when doing
a search. So if you are a geographically limited
business, you want to be in the most specific category
possible. Just pretend that all the words in your
category path are concatenated to your description for
the purposes of searching for you.

Barbara is in:

http://dir.yahoo.com/Regional/Countries/Canada/Provinces_and_Territories/Ontario/Counties_and_Regions/Peel/Cities/Mississauga/Business_and_Shopping/Business_to_Business/Printing/

so searches for printing that include words like Peel,
Ontario and Mississauga will find her. So far so
good.

But that is only half the battle; it is also crucial is
to craft a description that contains important
keywords. Barbara's is:

Gf/X Inc. - offers full color postcards, business
cards, and various printing and design services.

The important keyword she seems to be missing is
"printer". Searches like "printer in missassauga" will
not find her!

So a description like:

"full service printer offering full color postcards,
business cards, and general printing and design
services"

would be better - if it survives Yahoo's editing
process! But it can't hurt to apply for a change. If
you're doing something new that you think ought to be
added to your listing, then that's a good time to
attempt a rewording with more keywords.

http://www.wordtracker.com/ is a good place to find out
what the keywords ought to be, by the way, the above
is my quick guess, and it could be wrong.

More details on yahoo submission here:
http://selfpromotion.com/yahootips.t

Robert Woodhead, Webslave & Mad Overlord
http://selfpromotion.com/
Located in the Hurricane capitol of the US,
Wilmington NC. Lucky me!




Received on Wed Nov 29 2000 - 10:32:35 CST