There are hundreds of opinions from SEO “experts” on the right and wrong way to promote your site. Not a day goes by that I don’t see someone on sites like the Digital Point forums offering to submit your site to 450 web directories for $5. Is it even worth it? I don’t think offers like that particular example are, but I still believe that free web directories have value to offer to bloggers and web site owners. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be running one here at GeekySpeaky!

The trick is to list your site only in QUALITY web directories. You want a search engine friendly site, and you want one that allows you to provide a real description for your site, not just a list of keywords. Peruse the other listings - are the quality sites, or spam packed garbage? Are sites in the directory regularly reviewed and removed if they no longer qualify? DirMania is one free business web directories that promises to only accept quality sites, and they approve listings within 24 hours. All of this explains how they kept their PR 3 ranking when many directories LOST pagerank!

One of the easiest things you can do to boost your PR is to submit your site to web directories, like the one I run here at GeekySpeaky. Most of these directories have very simple standards for submission, and with just a few clicks, you’re done. Submitting to ANY directory is good, but the very best kind of directories to submit to offer one way links. That means that the directory links to YOU, but you’re not required to link back. Some directories do this for free, others, like mine, charge a small free for a permanent one way link. Finding out who offers free one way links can be a little tricky, but I found a great list of web directories offering both free and paid one way links.

But Colleen, who really uses web directories to FIND websites? Don’t people use Google?

True - most people won’t browse through a web directory looking for sites. The whole point of most web directories isn’t to send traffic to your site, it’s to give your link popularity added wait. When Google does a pagerank update, the more ONE way links you’ve got pointing to your site, the higher the chances are that your PR will improve! Adding your site to web directories is a great way to give your one way links some “oomph”, and with this site showing you a ton of free web directories you can submit to, it’s easy! If you want to make your directory submissions even easier, check out this free directory submission tool I found - it will keep track of what directories you’ve already submitted your site to, and which directories remain. (Trust me - it’s irritating to input all of your information into a submission form only to be told your site already exists in the directory!) If you’ve got multiple websites or blogs, no sweat - the tool will keep track of those too, and tell you what link title you used as well.

This is a sponsored review.

When I first had the brainstorm to create GeekySpeaky, I envisioned a simple blog about technology and the internet from a girl geek point of view. It’s funny that what started out as a simple little blog about the internet and technology has grown into a website with forums, a links directory, and monthly contests. I like what I’ve done with the place, but I’d also like to know what mistakes I’m making. I’m all for changing things up in order to attract more visitors and increase my ranking in the search engines. I’m just at a loss as to what to do next, so when I heard about DotCommentary, I was intrigued, and immediately wanted to get my own DotCommentary for this website. So what IS a DotCommentary, anyway?

A DotCommentary is a personalized website consultation designed to help you strengthen your online presence by looking at your website from all angles.

Oh sure, I could ask my friends to take a look and tell me what they think, but I’d probably end up with biased opinions, or maybe they’d be afraid of telling me about the negative aspects of the site. So why trust the man behind DotCommentary, Ben Steed?

For starters, Ben is unbiased. He’s spent the last ten years working on websites, and he’s obviously not going to be afraid to tell me the good, the bad, and the ugly about my site. Ben actually gave me a free DotCommentary in return for MY unbiased opinion about his service, which ranks websites on 35 checkpoints, showing you how you compare to your competition, and what you can do to fix the mistakes that you’ve made.

Let’s get started on what I thought of the DotCommentary, shall we?

Before I even received the results of the DotCommentary, I got an email from the company asking me to click on a link to verify my response time. Neat! This verifies that you actually reply to emails, customer complaints, questions, and the like. I’m happy to report my response time was instant. It’s definitely not something I would think of testing, but it’s a great idea!

Once the report was completed, I received a link to log in and view my results. It was laid out well, from the domain name to contact information and load time. Errors and potential problems are notated with an exclamation point or a red x, so if you’re pressed for time, you can only view the negative issues. Each of those negative things was clearly explained as well, for instance, my site can be accessed with or without the “www”, and the report pointed out I should have a 301 redirect to force people to one, or the other, but not allow hits to both versions. I never even thought of that.

I found out my CSS doesn’t validate, and I don’t have a favicon. Probably easy enough to fix on both counts, but I wasn’t aware I had problems with those items before now. I received kudos for having a search function prominently displayed, as well as making my font adjustable, and being compatible in different browsers. The report checked for broken links and only found 5.

What I liked best about all of this is that if you’re not sure about an item, you can easily access more information, tips, and resources on how to correct the problem. The whole thing is very user friendly and easy to follow and digest, and each segment is explained clearly. I’m very impressed.

PayPerPost recently released some very interesting information about the click through rates on sponsored posts. They’ve compiled results on campaigns blogged by 40,000 posties, and 8,000 advertisers, and the average click through rate on those paid links was an astounding 10.545%! As someone who has done the banner ad thing, and ran my own advertisements on Google AdSense, I know that that is an extremely high CTR.

Not only is this CTR great for the advertisers using PayPerPost, but it’s great for the people blogging about the sites and products. My traffic has doubled, if not tripled on every blog I’m using PayPerPost on. I’m getting tons of search engine traffic for things that I’ve blogged about, both sponsored and not.

And oh yeah, I made almost $6,000 last month with my blogs. Not all from PayPerPost of course, but I know PayPerPost is indirectly responsible for a lot of that income!

I was just introduced to a new site called Fechr.com which is guaranteed to give your blog a traffic boost. Fechr (which is pronounced “feature”) is designed t feature one site per day, for 24 hours, starting at midnight each day. Right now, the site is free, and I like free. Once the site gains a little traffic, there will be a charge to be the featured site. Hence, I recommend getting in now while the getting is good.

How am I so certain that you’ll get traffic from Fechr? It’s run by Bobby Griffin, the mastermind behind The Bestest Blog of All-Time. Bobby has featured my other blog (SimpleKindOfLife.com) on The Bestest Blog before, and I still get traffic from that mention. In fact, The Bestest Blog is my 12th biggest referrer, and that’s over 4 years of blogging, but I only did it last year. So yeah, I’d say Bobby knows a little something about web site promotion.

When I was on my business trip last week, I attended a nice little corporate event, and our CIO handed out gift bags to everyone in attendance. Inside was a company polo shirt, a fancy pen, a notebook with the company logo, a $50 Amex gift card, and a nice glass display plaque for my desk, inscribed with my name, the company name, and the project date. Imprinted promotional products aren’t just for your customers and clients - they’re for your employees, too! The polo shirt is great for casual Friday, and the notebook is perfect for meetings.

When I ran my website, I bought promo products like pens and key chains and gave them away at events I participated in. If you can put your URL on something free, you’re practically guaranteeing yourself a visit to your site. That’s why Gimmeees.com has products that allow for logo or URL customization for gifts and giveaways and tradeshows, from hats and mouse pads to calendars and cups!

Interested in getting 10 links, from different sites, all ranked PR 3, 4, 5 - and doing it for a good cause? That’s just what Charles from C.Whyte’s blog did after he read my post about helping my sister raise money for the 3Day walk, and you can do it too! Just click right here and read about the offer - you donate money to a charity, and you get great backlinks in return! It’s a great deal for you, so click the linky above and read more!

7/7/07 is going to be a big date, for a lot of people. Churches and chapels around the world have been booked for weddings. People are taking special trips to exotic locales, and special concerts are going on that day as well. It’s almost being treated like New Year’s Eve! I guess some think that having the date of 7/7/07 is considered lucky - and those couples getting married aren’t the only ones. In fact, you can head to Las Vegas on 7/7/07 for a complete free internet marketing discussion, run by Tony D. Baker. He’s a big internet marketing expert who resides in Oklahoma, and he’s been marketing websites and products online for over 10 years, with over 1000 clients under his belt.

Tony recently announced, via the press release linked above, and his blog, Advanced Marketing Techniques, his plan to invite anyone to learn the secrets of internet marketing. Since he plans to be in Vegas to meet clients, Tony figured that he’d kill 2 birds with one stone and invite all of us to join him for a free discussion group. You do need to RSVP (instructions can be found on Tony’s blog on how to do that) to attend, but in addition to the event being free, there are door prizes, as well as the benefit of hearing tips and tricks directly from Tony.

Ok, so I get Vegas - he was going to be there anyway. But why 7/7/07? “Having this meeting in this city and at a time when people are all caught up in the 07/07/07 hysteria sets the background for the perfect case study for our discussion”, said Baker.

If I hadn’t just come off a vacation, I’d probably go, just to pick up some tips. Anyone in the Las Vegas area who plans to attend out there?

One of the guest bloggers on the Sponsored Reviews blog posted a big long list of blog directories that you can submit your blog to this week. The list is arranged by Alexa and PR ranks. He left me out, so I left a comment on the entry telling him about the PR 5 (Alexa 13431!) directory here at GeekySpeaky, and he edited his entry to include it. Nice! My site is the 5th lowest Alexa score on there, so I’m pretty proud of myself. I’ve seen quite a few submissions from it too, so I’m impressed with how many people are coming over from that entry. Thanks, Daniel!

My friend Richard over at TheApp.net has created a blogroll for tech and entertainment blogs. I’m in on both counts, because this is a tech blog, and I entertain you all, right? Right. If you want to be added, just visit the link above and ask nicely!

Click to Join

Here’s another directory you may want to submit your sites to - and it’s got a much different approach than most standard directories. At the Big Web Links Directory, you actually bid on your page placement, so if you want to be on the first page of results, you bid higher than the others listed on that page to take over their spot. The top 10 listings get extra exposure on the directory homepage, and the top 20 are shown on the top links page, so even if someone isn’t browsing to your particular sub category, you’ll be seen.

I spent my evening submitting a site to directories. I’m helping a new found friend out with some SEO issues, and as part of that, I wanted to submit his site to some directories that didn’t charge for submission, and didn’t require a link back in return. I found a huge list of places to add your URL to online, and it proved to be a great resource tonight. I added my friend’s URL to at least 25 directories, and even found a few to add my own sites to.

Here’s a neat little online print shop that can handle just about anything you throw at them. You need business cards? No problem. Letterhead? Magnets? Postcards? Address labels? They can do all of that too. They’re sort of printing and promotion all in one - and I like that. When I ran my website, I didn’t just have business cards to give out. I had pens, and keychains, and a host of other freebies. Instead of giving someone just a business card, I’d give them a business card and a pen. How often do you think they used that card? Probably, in most cases, it was looked at once and ditched. But I’ll betcha that pen was left in a car, the bottom of a purse, or in a desk drawer, and it was used again and again. 123Print has a lot of great marketing ideas you can use, like I did with the pens, to promote your site or business offline. Use your own artwork, or one of their standard templates, and see what you can come up with.

Julie of Utterly Geek tagged me on this tonight….it’s like chain mail for geeks. Kind of like the Z-list? All tech and internet blogs only. Since Julie has added my list, I get to pay it forward now. This is a great way to get some new incoming links to your blog.

***Begin to copy here***

1. Write a short paragraph at the beginning of your post and link back to the blog that put you on the list in the paragraph. This isn’t a suggestion. You need to break up the duplicate content string. Someone took the time to add you so the least you can do is give them an extra linkback.

2. Copy the list of originals below COMPLETELY and add it to your blog. If you would like a different keyword for your blog then change it when you do your post and it should pass to most blogs with that keyword.

3. Take the adds from the blog that added you and place them in the “Originals” list.

4. Add no more than 5 new TECH, SCIENCE, or CONSUMER ELECTRONICS blogs to the list in the “My Adds” section.

My Adds:

Sarah In Tampa
Essential Keystrokes
Tomorrow’s Blog
The Blog World
Emporium Blog

The Originals:

UtterlyGeek
JMH Techtronics
Web Services
Tech It Like A Man!
Ugh!!’s Greymatter Honeypot
techboyardee
The Tech Inspector
John Chow
Ted Leung on the Air
Geek is a chic.
You’ve been HACKED
IDIOT TOYS
GeekySpeaky
BizMark Tech
SridhaReena
That Damn PC!
Gexen.net

***Quit Copying Here***

Technorati Tags: blog promotion, web site promotion, z-list

I always think it’s neat when people think out of the box (ha - I love using that cliche - it’s so bad, it’s good!) and come up with new & unique ways of promoting websites online. Like the guy who sold pixel ads on his site - don’t you wish you had thought of that first? www.headforthetop.com has a completely new idea that’s getting my competitive side revved up. You can place a text or image ad on their site, and you choose either rock, paper, or scissors. When another ad blocks your progress, you square off against them by actually playing rock, paper, scissors. Hilarious, huh? They explain it much better than I could:

Text or Image based adverts can be placed on the site, and each is placed in a box. Each advert also has a service or product description, and a link. Free boxes which just contain text can also be added which compete with the advertisements. Each box is assigned (user choice) either rock, paper or scissors. The advertisements are then launched from the bottom of the screen, and head for the top, hence the sites name. When their progress is blocked by another box, they play rock paper or scissors. The winner gets to proceed. And the looser gets relaunched if its an advertisement, or is deleted if its a free box. Its a novel idea designed to attract interest to the pixel advertising style of website. The fact that the casual user is able to play against the adverts is the clincher, because this focuses the interest on the advertisements which on most sites would be ignored. Realising the uniqueness of the idea, the designer has had the idea patented. At the moment there is a one off fee, based on size, which buys you an Advertisement lasting a year or more.

I love how these guys have taken a school yard game and turned it into a fun way to get your site or blog to the top of the page.

Last night I set about to installing a PHP links directory here on my site, and I’m happy to announce that it worked. You can submit your site to the Geeky Speaky Blog & Web Directory. Links are free (with a link back) or if you’d prefer not to link back, you can pay for a regular link or featured link. I’m not completely done adding categories yet, so let me know if you think I’m missing anything.

Keeping up with the latest in SEO trends, tips, and advice is tough to do. I have a full time job, a few blogs to keep up with, and a life. Luckily, I found an SEO blog that has a lot of information I can use, like the best and highest ranking blog directories to link to. Being linked from a high PR web directory can help boost YOUR PR, and since my next Google update goal is to bump at least one of my PR 4 sites to a 5, I’m going to be submitting my sites to a lot more places. As the blog explains, some directories do charge a fee. If you’re not required to link back to a directory, paying a fee can be a good thing sometimes, as one way links are the best for increasing your PR.

This is one blog I’m adding to my feed reader so I can keep using the info he’s posting.

Technorati Tags: SEO, PR, pagerank, Google, blog directories, blog directory, boost PR, PR increase, PR 4, PR 5, dirkut.com

When you think of marketing, you probably think of slick ad campaigns on TV and in magazines. There’s a whole lot more to marketing than what we see in the media, and one such case is this Steel Building Opportunity Interview with Dean Brown. The author, Tony D. Baker, is currently the host of Xeal Radio and an Internet marketing expert with over 1000 clients and over 10 years of Internet marketing experience. He was hired by Dean Brown to market Dean’s site, which focuses on the non-glamorous topic of self storage buildings. Baker points out that Google used to be super lax about links and cloaking, and they’re cracking down now, which has changed the landscape of internet marketing. He advises people to think about how they’d market their site if Google DIDN’T exist…it’s a great strategy, and one that obviously worked for Dean Brown.

One of the things you can do to promote your blog is to submit it to a blog directory. Getting listed in one of these, like Grokodile, can increase your pagerank and back links. Grokodile is a PR5 website, so if your PR is less than 5, being listed here can definitely give your PR a boost. One thing that sets Grokodile apart from other blog directories is that it’s regional. As I live near Tampa, FL, I was able to add my blog to a category specifically for Tampa bloggers. They really get down to the nitty gritty, listing just about EVERY city in Florida, so you can truly connect with another blogger in your own backyard.

I asked Loretta if she noticed a spike in her blog traffic after being featured last weekend, and she did! Before being featured, her Technorati ranking was 38,965. Now it’s moved up, to 36,319! Loretta also said that she received daily traffic from this site, as well as the others that participated, so it wasn’t just a one day boost. Last, but not least, she said ” It was a fun week to read about myself all over the internet, makes you feel all warm and fuzzy!”

I can’t put it any better than that. By participating each week, you’re helping other blogs out a lot - as a group, focused on one person each week, we can make a big difference!