If you'll follow the tips below, you'll:

1) Maximize your chances of being accepted into the directory (Unlike regular search engines, acceptance is not always a sure thing with human reviewed directories like Looksmart)
2) Maximize your chances of ranking well (very important if you want your listing to bring any traffic)
3) You'll learn of a technique you can use to increase your number of different top rankings in Looksmart for your business.
4) If you already have a listing in Looksmart, but it is not bringing in much traffic or is not ranking well, you'll find some strategies on how you may be able to fix that.

Many survey's show that Yahoo.com gets as much or more traffic to its Web site as most of the major search sites combined. Therefore, the importance of Looksmart for generating traffic to your site should not be underestimated since it claims a larger audience reach than even Yahoo. The difference is that hits from Looksmart's directory coming from Excite or other sites powered in part by Looksmart will not show up in your Web site traffic log as relating to Looksmart. Therefore, many people tend to underestimate the influence of good Looksmart listings.

Here are the steps to submitting to Looksmart to maximize traffic to your Web site:

STEP ONE: Make sure your Web site meets their guidelines

Since Looksmart has human beings review all submitted sites, you must be sure you have a Web site that complies with Looksmart's published rules. Luckily, complying with many of these guidelines will also help you in getting listed on other directories.

Looksmart is the only major directory that REQUIRES you pay a fee to submit a commercial Website. If you don't follow their guidelines, you may risk losing your submission fee.

* Your site must be in English and be of use to an audience located in the United States.

They claim that sites with the following issues are in jeopardy of NOT being listed:

* Sites with too few pages
* Sites without recognizable or quality content
* Sites that are excessively slow to load

They also state:

* Your site must be up and running 7 days a week and 24 hours a day.
* Your site should not be under construction, and all links should be working.
* Your site cannot mirror or redirect to another Web site.

Specifically, Looksmart is looking for:

* Sites that are rich in original content
* Sites that are relevant to the work, leisure or home lives of busy people
* High quality
* Reliable and up-to-date
* Accuracy
* Easy to use
* Fast
* Interactive
* Unique in content
* Interesting
* Visually appealing
* Useful to consumers

STEP TWO: Filling out the submission form

1. Go to Looksmart's submission page at:

http://submit.Looksmart.com/info.jhtml?synd=zbv

2. You'll first be asked for a Web site TITLE. According to Looksmart, this must be your company name or the exact title of your Web site.

Your goal in creating a great title is two fold:

a) The title should rank as high as possible alphabetically.

When you navigate through Looksmart categories either from their home page or from links in the search listings, you'll find that the sites are listed alphabetically like the Yellow Pages in a phone book. If you've already chosen a company, you may be limited on what you can do here short of renaming your company. However, you normally have more flexibility in what you call your Web site.

Common tips for ranking high alphabetically include beginning a name with a number rather than a letter. Also, a # symbol will rank higher than a number. Therefore, "#1 Web site Design" will rank higher than "1st Web site Design."

b) You want to incorporate as many keywords as you can in the title to improve your rankings.

Careful observation of Looksmart's directory reveals that they will list BOTH the company and product name or brief description. Here's an example of such a listing in the Marketing software category:

Palo Alto Software - Marketing Plan Pro Discover this software and learn to research and write a complete marketing plan. Chat live with an operator and find related resources.

The advantage of the above listing is that the title is longer than just a simple company name title. Marketing research traditionally credits longer titles as being more effective up to a point. In addition, Palo Alto Software managed to jam in twice as many keywords as most of their competitors. Therefore, they have a much better chance of coming up for searches on not only their product AND company name, but also on significant keywords like software, marketing, and plan.

It's important to point out that your rankings in directories like Looksmart will be determined solely by the title and description that is entered on the submission form which can potentially be edited by the human reviewer. The content of your Web site and the keywords that are on your physical Web pages will not affect your rankings in directory-based engines. However, the content of those pages must reflect your title and description at the time of submission or the reviewer will likely reject your suggested title/description and possibly your entire submission.

If you don't have a main product or service name for your company to include in the title, then another strategy is to slip in an important keyword with your company name when possible. For example, this listing from Visicat includes the very important keyword phrase "Interactive Web site Design" in the title:

Visicat Interactive Web Site Design Creators of software products for the Internet that can be used to increase traffic and enlarge the audience.

If you travel to their site, their company name appears as simply Visicat, Inc. My guess is that the reviewer allowed the above title to slip by, or perhaps Visicat had their Web site designed with Visicat Interactive Web Site Design as the title of their site at the time of submission. Another possibility is that the reviewer deemed "Interactive Web Site Design" as a reasonable name for the product/service that the company offered. To get a feel for what Looksmart considers a reasonable title, do some searches. See what pops up in categories relating to your own Web site.

Be aware that I do not recommend you make up company names just to get better listings in Looksmart. However, if you can expand upon your company name a little or create a good title for your site and also reflect that on your Web site's home page, then it can help you significantly in your Looksmart rankings. It can also help you in your rankings in Yahoo!, Snap, and other directories. Remember to include good keywords. (See the previous article on keywords for tips on selecting the best ones).

A word of caution: Real humans will review your submission. Therefore, if you simply jam in a bunch of keywords like "Bill's Web site Design and Web site Promotion Software and Services Inc." you will find your submission rejected, or your title chopped down to whatever they feel is appropriate. Therefore, exercise CAUTION. Adding more than a handful of closely related words will almost certainly throw up a red flag to the reviewer.

BONUS TIP: One way to negotiate a little higher ranking for alphabetical listings is to list either the product or the company name first depending on which ranks higher alphabetically. For example, you could title your site as either:

My Company - My Product

OR:

My Product by My Company

There's no guarantee the reviewer will not decide to chop the title down to solely the company or product name. However, you can improve your odds by making the title of your home page and perhaps the first heading of the page precisely match the title that you submit to Looksmart. You could always choose to change your Web site title or heading later (after being listed in Looksmart) to include more words, or to accommodate different wording as desired.

Since directory listings are rarely reviewed again with great scrutiny, your Looksmart listing will most likely never be affected by site changes you make so long as the basic content of your site remains the same. DO NOT, however, submit a site for a certain topic and then change your site to a completely different topic later without informing Looksmart! That could get you permanently banned from the directory, and would tick off Looksmart visitors coming to your site.

3. Web site address

This field on the Looksmart submission form is normally the domain name for your Web site or the URL to your home page. It helps to have your own domain name since you'll be perceived as a more "serious" Web site.

BONUS TIP:

Many businesses own multiple domain names. If you have multiple domains that point to the same home page, submit only ONE to Looksmart. However, Looksmart will accept multiple submissions from the same business if each URL points to substantially unique content. How does this help you? Well, you can only be found on keywords found in the brief title and description of your site found in the Looksmart directory. There are probably many other keywords not appearing there that people would search for but would only find your competitors.

Therefore, if you have a Web site that contains substantial content on more than one topic, purchase multiple domains, one for each topic. Include all the pages that apply to each topic on its own Web site domain. You can purchase domains from many places on the Web.

The key is that each submission you make must be perceived by the Looksmart editor as having substantially unique content versus other sites you own. The more content on each topic the better. You cannot simply put a single product page on each domain you own and submit it to Looksmart expecting them to accept them all. If you feel the amount or type of content each site has could be "borderline," your safest bet is to space out your submissions over a period of weeks or months. This increases the odds of someone different reviewing each site, or of the original person not comparing it directly to your other submissions.

Achieving a second Looksmart listing can double the amount of traffic you receive from one of the most important directories on the Web. A third listing could triple that traffic. Therefore, although it may be a bit of work to set up, you can significantly expand the number of ways people can find you on Looksmart or other directories simply by re-organizing your content and your submissions. This approach also has other side benefits such as improving your link popularity in the regular search engines if you link from one domain to the other.

Each domain you set up could also include the best keywords for that topic to improve your rankings on non-directory engines. Home pages will tend to rank better than sub-pages on many non-directory engines. Therefore, multiple Web site domains allows you to optimize more home pages for the various keywords you have. If you're on a tight budget and can't afford renting multiple Web sites, check into http://www.webquarry.com. They cater to setting up affordable accounts for search engine marketers. I don't like to recommend ANY hosting service since all I've found have their own strengths and weaknesses. Despite this, I've heard good things about WebQuarry's flexibility in regard to search engine marketers, so compare your host to them and choose whomever is best for you.

4. Comments - This field on Looksmart's submit form is less for comments about your submission but for a suggestion to the reviewer for the DESCRIPTION to use for your site. The description you suggest is very important to your rankings as well as to how many people click on your listing over your competitors. You must include some keywords that people would likely search on when looking for your type of Web site.

Tips for writing both the title and the description so that Looksmart will accept it include:

* Please write in English.
* Do not type in all capitals.
* The title must be 55 characters or less.
* Do not overly praise the site.
* Do not be repetitive.
* Be honest and informative about the site.
* Check your spelling and grammar.
* Make sure you have submitted the correct Web address in its entirety.
* You must limit the description to 145 characters.

Although the above article discusses Meta description tags which are ignored by Looksmart, the principles discussed under the topic "How to Write a Compelling Description" still apply when writing your Looksmart description.

Ultimately, the Looksmart editor will write whatever description they deem appropriate. Therefore, be conservative in the way you write the description so that it describes the content of your site and does not "overly praise" the site. Make sure it slips in some of your important keywords without making the sentences sound awkward. With any luck, the editor will choose the easiest route and simply paste your description in verbatim.

Important: Be sure to record all the information you use to fill out their submit form so you can reference it later if needed.

Category Selection:

Unfortunately Looksmart does not give you a specific field to suggest one or more Looksmart categories for your site. This seems rather ridiculous to me since it could only help editors that are not as familiar with your industry as you in finding the best categories. The comments field allows only 145 characters which is the maximum length of the site descriptions that they allow. Therefore, the best you can do is wait to see where they place your site. If you're not happy with it, see STEP FOUR regarding changing your listing.

STEP THREE: Follow Up

The next step is to monitor Looksmart for your new listing. With any luck, your site should appear within forty-eight hours or within eight weeks depending on the submission option you chose. Looksmart claims that if you are accepted they will notify you via e-mail.

If you don't find your site within the expected amount of time, e-mail Looksmart's express service department at:

expsvc@Looksmart.net

Ideally you should include the order number you received after submitting, date you submitted, and the URL you submitted when you contacted them.

STEP FOUR: Changing your listing

If all goes well, you will get the listing you wanted and achieve some good rankings. However, reviewers are notorious for ignoring what you suggest and writing their own site descriptions. Many times these descriptions are too brief, or do not include important keywords, or are simply wrong or misleading.

Please keep in mind that Looksmart does NOT care one bit about how your site ranks after you've been accepted. In fact, they will tell you flat out that they will not change your listing simply to improve your ranking. Therefore, if you want something changed in your listing, you must prove to them that it will correct a factual error, or it will somehow improve the search experience for their users. For example, if you can show how their current description is misleading or in error in some way, then offer a description that corrects that, then you will vastly improve the odds of your change request being accepted.

I will repeat: If you e-mail them about changing your listing, do not complain about your rankings or the lack of "keywords" in the description. Also, be polite and logical in your argument. Demonstrate how the change will improve their directory and they will be more apt to listen. Be humble in your request. Arrogance will only get you ignored in this case.

BONUS TIP: If you're listed in just one or two categories, it doesn't hurt to e-mail them and suggest another category or two that your site applies to as well, or should be placed instead. Being in more categories can make a big difference in the amount of traffic you receive. However, this should not be your argument when you e-mail them. Instead, politely explain to them how a suggested category is more appropriate to your Web site's content and how it would benefit their visitors search experience. Be persuasive but do not write an epic novel. These people are busy so they don't have time to read the "War and Peace" novel on why you should be in another category.

When looking for the best categories, do searches for your competitors. See what categories they are in. Decide if you want to compete in that category against them or perhaps in another category where they do not appear but where your Web site still closely relates.

If the category you are in includes the keyword that people are searching on, then that can improve your ranking for that keyword. There is also some value to choosing categories that are alphabetically higher than others. However, the most important rule is to choose the category or categories that are most appropriate for you site. Choose the ones that you feel potential customers would pick if they were looking for your product or service.

A tip I received from a contact at Looksmart suggested that you should search for competitors or sites similar to your own in the directory. Write down what categories in which they appear. Explain to the editor how your site is closely related to one or more other sites that appear in the category you wish to be in. I'd suggest that when you reference the category, paste in the exact name of the category along with the URL displayed when you navigate to it. That will help the editor locate the category more quickly.

You should also pick your battles. If you request major changes to your description that have questionable value to Looksmart AND you request multiple categories to be added, you could increase your odds of them ignoring all your requests. You'll have to make a judgement call on whether to argue for both changes or argue for one change now and perhaps another change later on.

To request an update to your listing fill out their change form at:

http://www.Looksmart.com/aboutus/contact/url_change.html

or e-mail:

correction@Looksmart.net

It's not very clear on their site which is their preferred form of contact. I'd suggest you try the form first since it asks you for all the information their support people like to see. That should improve the odds of them making the change you request.

Final Tips: When submitting, use a real email address so that Looksmart can contact you about your submission. Keep a copy of the original submission for reference (email used, title and description suggested, date, url, etc.) Use this information if you need to email them in regard to your original submission.

In conclusion, once you're ready to submit to Looksmart, you may do so at the link below: