Organic SEO for Small Businesses – Part 6 | Website Design Kilkenny Blog

Intended Audience: Small Business Owners/webmasters and anyone new to the world of web design and search engine optimization (SEO) particularly those working with small businesses, organizations and sole traders.Note: Part IV of this series of articles was published on July 26th, 2009 and can be viewed at http://www.istech.ie/blog/?p=133The fifth article in this series focused on relevant links and we will continue the link theme in this article and take a look at global paid web directories and their significance in improving your website’s position on search engine results pages. We will also consider the role, if any; these directories play in bringing visitors to your website.We’ll start off by considering global directories which require a fee in order to list your website and company details. Please note that this article will not discuss web directories that do not offer a link back to your website. We know that budgets for getting listed on fee paying web directories may be virtually non existent at many small businesses, sole traders and start-up companies so we’ll only list the important directories rather than listing a plethora of options. Three factors should influence our selection of paid web directories namely:* Cost* Impact on search engine rankings* Ability to generate website traffic (i.e. visitors to my website)At a global level most commentators agree that the Yahoo Directory is probably the best web directory to be listed in though at US$299 per year it’s hardly a cheap option for small businesses. What will a listing on the Yahoo directory do for my website? While the amount of website traffic such a listing might generate depends on your geographical location and business niche it will send to a message to the likes of Google that your business is a real and substantive operation thus improving your rankings in the search engines.If you are planning to launch a website or have a recently launched website and/or you are operating in a highly competitive market area then it may well be worth considering allocating some of your marketing budget to the provision of Yahoo Directory. Please note that the author or Istech Technology Services are not affiliated in any way with any of the web directories listed in this article.While there are other web directories which some form of global reach such as business.com we generally recommend that small business focus next on local paid web directories which can often achieve a better balance between improving your website’s ranking and bringing potential customers to your website.The next article in this series will expand on the topic of local paid web directories, free global directories, social media, classified ads etc.