Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your website

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Figure 7.1

Open Directory Project submittal links

If your site doesn’t have an existing listing on the ODP, you’ll follow nearly the

same steps to submit a new listing. However, first you must choose a good category for

your site. Here are some tips to help you make the choice:

Cluster with your competition.

Search the directory for your top business competitors.

If they’re all in the same category, you want to be there too.

Get specific.

Browse the directory, starting from the biggest, top-level categories and

working your way down to the one most specific to your organization. For example, if

you provide tennis lessons, you don’t want to be in a generic category like “Sports.” You

want to be in a more appropriate category like Shopping

Sports

Tennis

Training or

a local category like Regional

North America

Canada

Ontario

Localities

Toronto

Recreation and Sports

Tennis.

Use category tiebreakers.

If you are faced with two categories that seem to fit your

site equally well, choose the better-quality category page based on the link quality fac-

tors you assessed on Monday for inbound links in general. If all of the page quality

factors are equal, choose the category with more editors listed at the bottom of the

page. The editors are the people who review and approve your listing, but they some-

times go missing or permanently vacate their posts, so the more listed per category, the

better your chances.

Once you have found your category of choice, click on the “suggest URL” link

near the top of the page and follow the guidelines to proceed. Most likely, you will

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