First, is there any guide published on submitting to search engines?

Second, I want to have my local web hosting company's website listed on a Yahoo directory. They want $300 for commercial sites! I'm just starting out and $300 is a lot to me. Is there any other way to get this published there? If there isn't, I just won't do it yet, I don't have $300 to put into this.

Thanks :)

Yahoo requires the recurring annual fee for commercial sites. Only non-commercial sites can use the free submission option now. The only other free directory is dmoz.org but they can take very long (many many months) to get listed.

I think the cheapest option would be google, but yet it is still expensive. I had tried to put up ads using google for like 4 days and it got like 64 clicks and charged for 60++ USD~

Track those clicks to know if your ad dollars are working for you ;)

64 clicks for $60 is very good. On average I pay in the region of $3-$4 per click!

Of course it depends how relevant the traffic was however.

Say, does that $300 offer from Yahoo guarantee you will be listed ? Or is it like a usual search engine where you might be listed or not and if you are listed it might be on page 78 or something ?

The 300 for yahoo is just a review fee. It doesn't necessarily get you in the directory. That said, I haven't been turned down with over a dozen sites reviewed. It is a worthwhile expense if you sell anything on your site. You get good quality traffic and some other added bonuses (for example, google will consider it an inbound link from a good site and this will help your page rank in google).

Another yahoo tip is to submit in the regional section. Drill down to the local area where the site or company is geographically located. It is often very easy to get in your local city category (even if you are commecial and don't pay the fee).

For dmoz.org you can do the same thing (regional/geographical) but also submit to an appropriate 'non-geographical' category. They allow 2 listings. Make sure you find an 'appropriate' category. This is key to getting listed. Also, check at the bottom of your category page and see if there is an editor (it will say if they are looking for one). It is best if their is an editor ... but if not, still check and see when the last time the page/category was updated (it says at the bottom somewhere). If it was updated recently, then someone is taking care of it .... if it was last updated in 2001, then find another category :-)

Also, if you aren't accepted right away, be careful about resubmitting to the same category. It will replace your original submission and move you back down the list to be reviewed.

Hope this helps someone ...

Do you get a lot of visitors from Yahoo ? I mean is it really significant or just like 5 a day or something (which might still be worth it but just to get an impression) ?

I think the visitors from Yahoo won't be as much as you could get for the money, but it seems like it'll be people who know what they're looking for since they'd be going through category listings

With regard to 'quality of hits' AgaBoogaBoo is right. The visitors you get are looking for your product/service. This generally leads to higher quality hits which leads to more sales per hit (conversion rate). Obviously other things affect your conversion rate too. For example; price, value, professionalism of the site, ease of ordering, etc.

With regard to quantity of hits, that depends on a number of factors. For example; popularity/demand for product or service, number of competitors in your category, whether or not you can get your sites listed at the top of the category in the 'most popular' section, etc.

Have you picked a category for Yahoo? If you post the category or product/service, I may be able to give you a better idea of what to expect. I am not sure what the rules are about posting URLs, but if you can get me the URL, I can take a look at it.

In summary, you are asking the right questions (conversion rates and quantity of traffic). It is a fairly substantial amount of money to pay, so it is best to be certain you will get your money back quickly.

The fee doesn't guarantee if you get listed. But I suspect you shouldn't have any problem getting listed as long as your site is decent looking.

Whether to list depends on what's your objective. If you are listing in some local version of the category, it may be worthwhile since there would be fewer listings to compete with.