Tips for Creating a Marketable Website (Series: Part 2 of 5) – Guest Blog by Prosper’s Ethan Willis and Randy Garn

About Prosper

Prosper offers long distance one-on-one customized education programs to help students realize their potential and achieve greater wealth. Prosper currently focuses mentoring programs on real estate and stock market investing, entrepreneurship, e-commerce, personal development, and personal finance.    Curriculum is geared towards students who want to get ahead, start a business and diversifying their income.  The programs offer the knowledge, skills and accountability students need to reach their goals.  Willis and Garn released a new book this week, also titled Prosper. For more information about Prosper Inc., or to buy the book visit www.prospering.com.

Ethan Willis and Randy Garn , Founders of Propser

Tip 2: Get Listed on Directories

Directories are a major way to gain credibility and link popularity for your website. A lot of directories have good PageRank, and it is a good way for your site to get a one-way link from a page that has a good PR. The best source for finding free and paid directories is a list kept by SEO Company, at http://www.seocompany.ca/ . In their menu bar there is a Directories category, which lists several different types of directories. Investigate the types and find one your company might fit well with. One method of submitting your site to a directory is to visit a directory and then probe (click) down through their sub-categories as far as you can go— while keeping your probing relevant to your site. Once you probe down to the sub-category that best fits your business, click on the link for submitting your site to that directory. The most important directory to submit to is Netscape’s, DMOZ Open Directory Project (ODP), at http://www.dmoz.org . DMOZ is a free submittal directory. The ODP powers the core directory services for the web’s largest, and most popular, search engines and portals— including Netscape Search, AOL Search, Google, Lycos, HotBot, DirectHit, and hundreds of others.

To submit to the ODP, go to www.dmoz.org , and click on Suggest URL at the top of the page. But be warned, DMOZ is very particular about submitted web pages meeting its qualifications. Consequently, DMOZ’s high standards keep the quality of its directory very high. When you click on Suggest URL, it will refer you to a page with the requirements for submitting to DMOZ. Make sure you read and follow the directions on that page very carefully. Having your site listed in DMOZ is critical for gaining credibility with other search engines. Google works very closely with DMOZ, and being listed in DMOZ can positively affect your rankings with Google. Because DMOZ is the largest directory, other directories feed from it. Be careful not to submit to DMOZ multiple times.