|  Six
Ways Into Yahoo
By Kim Roach (c) 2006
Yahoo was started in 1994
by two college students named David Filo and Jerry Yang. They started
Yahoo as a way to keep track of their personal interests on the
Internet. Nevër did they imagine that their online ventures
would turn into one of the most recognized brands on the Internet.
The Yahoo directory quickly gained popularity as the hot spot for
finding useful Web sites. In the fall of 1994, Yahoo had its first
million-hit day, translating to almost 100 thousand unique visitors.
Today, Yahoo is one of the top sites on the internet, receiving
over 345 million visitors every month.
Through the years, Yahoo
has gone through a number of facelifts. You can see a visual history
using the WayBackMachine. Yahoo has nöw expanded into one of
the largest portals online, offering everything from shopping, video,
and podcasts to finance, news, real estate and personals.
Along with this expansion have come many additional opportunities
for webmasters to distribute their content. Many webmasters today
are constantly worried about their rankings in Yahoo. However, there
are a number of other ways to get into Yahoo besides the Yahoo Search
Engine.
In this article, we will discuss 6 ways that you can market your
content within the Yahoo portal.
- Mobile Site Submission
- Podcast Submission
- Product Submission
- Yahoo Directory Submission
- Media RSS Feeds
- Yahoo Answers
Yahoo Mobile Site Submission
Yahoo, Google, and MSN nöw provide many options for the mobile
browser. With cell-phones far out numbering computers, this user-base
is one that is far too lucrative to pass up. It's time we developed
our sites for the communication revolution that we are living in
and this means preparing our web sites to be easily viewable on
very small screens.
Mobile web sites come
in three flavors: xHTML, WML, or cHTML. To submit your mobile site
for inclusion in Yahoo's mobile search index, simply enter the URL
on their submission page. Only the top-level page is needed, the
Yahoo Crawler will explore the rest of your site from there.
Podcast Submission
In 2005, the term "podcast" was declared Word of the Year
by the New Oxford American Dictionary. According to Information
Week podcast users are expected to reach 60 million by the year
2010. With these kind of numbers, it just makes sense to start implementing
podcasting into your own marketing strategy.
Yahoo released their podcast directory in 2005 and it is nöw
one of the best places to submit your podcast and start picking
up some extra subscribers. Simply go to http://podcasts.yahoo.com/publish
to get started.
Product Submission
If you sell products, then they should definitely be in the Yahoo
shopping index. Yahoo's merchants range from Dell to Amazon.com.
This network puts you in front of millions of potential buyers.
You pay only when a shopper clicks on a listing that takes them
to your site. Your cost-per-click will vary depending on which category
you are in. You can review their pricing on the Product Submit page.
Media RSS
The Internet is no longer a world of text. With broadband becoming
rapidly available at affordable prices, audio, video and other visual
content is becoming increasingly popular.
As the variety of content has increased online, Yahoo
has been continually adapting. They nöw allow you to search
specifically for audio and video within their search engine.
If you are looking to increase your web site's traffïc, creating
audio and video content for your web site could be the answer. The
competition among these new forms of media is still in its infancy.
To get your audio, video, and other visual content into Yahoo, you
can submit it via a media RSS feed. Yes, I know, it sounds very
technical, but it's really not all that bad.
Yahoo Directory
The benefits of being listed in the Yahoo directory have been strongly
debated among online marketers.
However, submitting your site to directories does provide you with
a number of benefits. One of the most important benefits is that
they grow the number of quality one-way links coming to your site,
which is one of the most important ranking factors in many search
engines.
Unlike Yahoo's search engine, their directory is maintained by human
eiditors. When submitting to the Yahoo directory, preparation is
the key. Be sure to read their guidelines before you get started.
So, what's the catch? Yahoo! Directory Submit charges a recurring
annual fee of US$299 for each directory listing that is submitted,
so you will have to decide for yourself whether or not the hefty
price tag is worth it.
Yahoo Answers
Yahoo! Answers was launched on December 8, 2005. It is a community
where anybody can ask and answer questions on a variety of
topics. However, it is also an online community and social networking
service. Questions range from the trivial, such as "When
was kleenex invented?" to more serious ones like "Where
can I submit press releases on the web?". Last month, Yahoo
Answers reached 10 million answers posted.
Because this is such a large community, it is also one of the perfect
mediums for delivering your marketing message. As a webmaster, you
can establish yourself as an expert in almost any field by providing
good answers to questions asked about topics related to your
product or service.
Not only that, but you can also add more information about yourself
or your company in your profile section. However, it is even more
effective if you simply include a URL to your site in a resource
box below your answers.
The key to using Yahoo Answers as a successful marketing medium
is to deliver quality content. If you do this, then people will
certainly take notice.
Now that you know 6 additional ways into Yahoo, you should be able
to start using these techniques to gain an advantage over your competitors.
There are so many people who simply don't put in the extra effort
required to get exceptional results.
However, for those who are constantly looking to improve, now is
the time to latch onto some of the most popular developments in
internet marketing. Podcasting,
blogging, mobile search, and video have yet to see their peaks.
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