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 millíons 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 questíons on a variety of topics. However, it is also an online community and social networking service. Questíons 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 questíons 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.

About The Author
Kim Roach is a staff writer and editor for the SiteProNews and SEO-News newsletters. You can contact Kim at: kim@seo-news.com.

 

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