Rule #1: Follow their Rules

All submissions to Yahoo will be reviewed by a real live person unlike most other sites which use "robots" or "spiders" to do the work. Therefore, Rule #1 is follow the rules and don't "spam"! Otherwise, you'll likely get yourself in trouble with Yahoo resulting in your site not being indexed at all! Getting indexed on Yahoo is critical and something you don't want to mess up.

Recently I heard Yahoo has placed additional restrictions on submissions. http://www.webposition.com may be added to the index but http://www.webposition.com/newsletters/ may be ignored under the new policy! It's unclear how strict this policy will be enforced for the millions using a subdirectory off their Host's main domain name. I can't believe they would simply ban all those sites. If anyone has additional information on this, let me know. It's just another reason to invest in your own domain name if at all possible to avoid potential problems.

Rule #2: Make your Web site look good

Make sure your site's content and layout is in good shape and really looks good before submitting to Yahoo. If it doesn't pass their "review", you won't be added to Yahoo!. However, if this happens to you (a common problem), simply improve your page design and content and submit again. Since Yahoo is picky about the sites it allows in its index and not always consistent, timely follow up is critical. It currently takes 6 to 8 weeks to be indexed by Yahoo, so be patient but check back often.

Rule #3: Optimize your position

User's may find your site by one of two ways with Yahoo:

1. By browsing the alphabetical list of categories
2. By doing a search for a keyword or phrase

Alphabetical Categories

Unfortunately there's not a lot you can do here. If you're actual company name is AAA Software, then great, you'll rank high in the categories. However, if you're name is actually something like Zebra Software, you're in trouble. The best thing you can do is make sure you're in an attractive category and the 25 word description you create is compelling. Spend some time examining your category choices and review Yahoo's suggestions at: http://www.yahoo.com/docs/info/appropriate.html

Some companies have had success with pages indexed by the subject matter of the page, even though current Yahoo guidelines state that if you're a commercial site, you must enter your company name for the title.

For example, I found a company called Net 101 which had a page in Yahoo Titled "20 Reasons to Put Your Business on the World Wide Web". Numbers come before letters alphabetically, so this company was right at the top of the category of Computers | Internet | Business & Economics. They submitted not their home page about their company's services, but a nice article about 20 Reasons to put your business on the Web.

It may be that this page and the many others I found like it were added before Yahoo became strict with its policies. However, considering the massive amount of free traffic potential available from Yahoo, you might take this strategy before making that assumption.

Submit your home page with a Yahoo title of your company name. Get yourself listed properly in your chosen category(s). This is the first priority. Do it by hand, don't use a submitting service/product for this particular site since Yahoo is so important to your marketing strategy. Once that's accomplished write a quality, highly informative article, guide, or reference document about something related to your market niche. Try to be unbiased and provide useful content. Have a discreet link to your home page for more information. Try submitting that to Yahoo under the appropriate category for the article. Title it, "10 ways to do this," or, "20 reasons for doing that," etc. so you appear near the top, even if you're Zebra Marketing, Inc. This technique with Yahoo is a bit of a gamble, but so long as you get your company listed first successfully, submitting a well written article on some relevant subject matter later on might be accepted too. Make sure the article does not sound like a commercial for your services. Do not even mention your company name in the page, but have a subtle link to your home site somewhere embedded in the text of the page. If you have two web site domains or know a friend with a web site, consider hosting the article on a separate domain from your site, then have a discreet reference link to yourself in the article. Visitors who are excited about the article will follow the link. Yahoo may judge the page as good, useful, and objective content and add it to their index under the Title you suggest if it matches the page's title. If they do, and you achieve a #1 or #2 position for that article/Web site, expect incredible amounts of traffic.

Rule #4 Optimize keyword prominence and frequency

Unlike many other engines, Yahoo will not index the contents of your page. All keywords it searches on were submitted by you in the Title and 25 word description you entered in the Yahoo submit form. The key is to include crucial keywords prominently and repeat them when possible.

Example Yahoo! Search:
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Business and Economy: Companies: Financial Services: Financing: Real Estate

BayBank ~Mortgages~ - ~mortgage~ information, daily rates, calculators, and online applications.

Home ~Mortgages~ of the Palm Beaches Ltd. - lender originating loans throughout Florida.

Business and Economy: Companies: Real Estate: Regional: U.S. States: Colorado

First City Financial ~Mortgages~ - low rate residential ~mortgages~ for purchase or refinance. Offices in Boulder, Colorado Springs, Denver, Evergreen, Fort Collins, Greeley and Loveland.

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This example elegantly demonstrates Yahoo!'s prominence and frequency ranking methodology. I've ~accented~ the keyword "mortgages" for clarity.

The first entry has the keyword twice: Once as 2nd word of the site "Title" and once as the first word of the Web site description.

The second entry has the keyword as the second word of the title, but no additional points scored for frequency as the keyword does not appear in the description.

The third position, has the keyword twice, but it first appears as the fourth word of the title. See how important keyword placement in the title is?

Unfortunately with commercial sites, Yahoo says you must use your company name for the title which doesn't give you much latitude (unless you try the tip mentioned in Rule #4. Therefore, the next best thing you can do is include your most important keyword as early in the 25 word description as possible. To decide which keywords to target, do searches on Yahoo and review the current list of Web sites presented.

Can you top or beat the prominence and frequency of the keywords that are used by those sites to place well? If the keyword is already used in someone's company name, chances are slim that you'll beat them. However, being ranked first is important but does NOT necessarily guarantee the most traffic. Aha! See Rule #5 below!

Rule #5 - Make your 25 words compelling!

Don't try to cram in so many keywords that your Yahoo sentence is not compelling to the reader. Besides, Yahoo will reject it if its simply a list of keywords and not a sentence. Even if you're positioned higher than your competitor, if your competitor's site description sounds more appealing, guess who people will click on first? Spend some time offline crafting a sentence which sounds compelling. Have others look it over if possible. Give them a reason to click on your link. Mention a FREE service if you can. However, at least for Yahoo, you must avoid including marketing slogans or superlatives such as "The Best site on the Internet" or "We're the Number One Dealer...", etc. Yahoo warns against this. If you do, they'll likely delete your submission and you'll be wondering on the 9th week why your site never showed up. You can't afford to wait over two months just to learn that you have to do it all over again!

Look for a more detailed discussion next month on how to both write and implement good page summary descriptions for the search engines. Doing this right the first time will increase your traffic as much as occupying a top position.

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