Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Using Internet Business Directories For Increased Site Traffic

As an online business owner, one of your preoccupations is increasing your site traffic. If you have been in business for even a short period of time, you know that the key to getting more hits is by optimizing for the search engines. Most people use the search engines to find the sites they are looking for, so it is in your best interests to achieve as high a page ranking as you can.

Search engine optimization is vital to your business, but you should not overlook another method for increasing your site traffic by getting listed in an internet business directory. Internet business directories work in the same way that yellow pages work for traditional pages. To wit, they are listings of the various businesses operating on the web. To make the listings more tenable to use, the sites are grouped according to different categories. Sites can be listed by topics or regions, for example. Different business directories use different criteria to categorize its sites.

The reason you want to get listed in an internet business directory is because people use directories to find sites. While getting listed in an internet business directory is not as important as getting optimized for the search engines, it can nevertheless contribute to an increase in your site traffic. People use directories to find a wide variety of sites pertaining to topics they are interested in. Obviously, not being listed is a disadvantage.

To have your site listed in an internet business directory, you must first identify the directories that you feel will be most conducive to your business’ success. Next, you will have to submit your site for possible inclusion. If your site is legitimate, you should have no problem getting accepted. After being reviewed, your site will be indexed in the most appropriate category.

Here some excellent examples of internet business directories:

AME Info (www.ameinfo.com) - A business directory listing almost 200, 000 Middle Eastern companies.
AT&T Directories (www.att.com/directory/index.html) - This site can help you find a persons and/ or business by name or phone number.
Big Book (www.bigbook.com) - A listing of businesses within the United States. You can search for a business using its name, location or category.
BizEurope.com Resources (www.bizeurope.com/bsr/manu/resource.htm) - A listing of European companies involved in importing and exporting.
British Companies (www.britishcompanies.co.uk) - a listing of British consumer product companies.

British Services (www.britishservices.co.uk)- a listing of British service providers.
Business.com (www.business.com) - This site also doubles as a search engine. You can find products, services, companies and jobs here.
Corporate Affiliations (www.corporateaffiliations.com) - lists companies that have merged, changed names or gone out of business.
Europages: European Business Directory (www.europages.com) - Europages lists the addresses of half a million companies from thirty European countries. The site can be viewed in six languages.

This listing is not meant to be a comprehensive one but it should be sufficient to get you started. Remember that internet business directories can help you increase your market reach, so you should never overlook them!

To Your Success

Obinna Heche. Los Angeles - California

Delivering the best home based business ideas and
opportunities so you can work at home successfully..
http://www.homeincomeportal.com/obhmy365

Survey Scout Review

Live life at your own pace and earn money sitting at home and working smart. This seems to be the mantra of the new Internet generation. Today 1000s of people have discovered new ways to harness this awesome power by doing jobs like taking surveys, data entry or just typing. Survey Scout is one of the oldest and most reputed survey programmes. There are probably over 100 such ‘Paid Survey” programmes out there on the world wide web, but research has shown that 97% of them are just ‘get rich quick’ scams.

Let us see how the system works and how Survey Scout can actually help you generate income every week sitting right at home! First the most obvious question is why should anyone pay me for taking surveys? Even I was skeptical in the beginning, but then I realized that companies too are doing the smart thing. They have huge market research budget which often goes waste on tele-callers or telemarketers who end up badgering unsuspecting customers. So these companies decided to use the marketing budget smartly by paying the survey taker directly instead of paying for a data collector.

Now with the logic behind the paid survey addressed let us see how Survey Scout actually works and pays for you. many of the paid survey companies are out to make a quick buck as explained earlier. They entice the readers with unbelievable returns and collect the money either to send you pornography or just disappear. Therefore you must check for the quality and verify its validity before registering with any survey service. One way of doing it is to identify the top five and join.

Now, Survey Scout has been consistently ranked from 1 - 3 in most of the review sites. This speaks volumes for its quality and impeccable credentials. Most companies charge a onetime membership fee promising you that they will send several surveys averaging $5 -$75 but in reality it may take many months before you can even earn $25. But Survey Scout pays you $25 worth survey on joining! So practically, you pay only $9.95 for registration as you get to do a $25 survey almost instantly. That has earned survey scout the highest ranking of 5 stars.

Basically Survey Scout’s strength is its strong paid surveys database now touching more than 400 top market research companies. In addition to the basic features of many online paid survey. I personally like the user-friendly approach of the whole site. It is simple to understand and browse and gives very good categorized information to registered members. They not only offer access to some of the best market companies but also categorize them by the types of compensation or rewards offered.

While many survey companies do not show the status of the online market research company. Survey Scout informs before registering whether the company accepts international members or only US based members. Survey Scout scores over many other sites mainly in the constantly updated database. It also offers you an 8 week unconditional money back guarantee.

Survey Scout offers various options to get paid online. Paid online surveys, focus groups, mystery shopper jobs, phone surveys and opportunity to sample new products are some of the ways that survey scout offers. They also offer many additional features, bonuses, free tools that make it really an attractive option. They also give you guidance on whether the company pays cash awards or gift certificates or points. Since they take the trouble of doing background research on the companies in their database, you need not do it by yourself.

If you are new to the business of online survey’s then perhaps Survey Scout is your best choice with its user friendly interface and updated directory of companies.

Joseph Tierney flils in surveys part time on the internet and makes over $2k a month doing it, you can learn more about at Survey Scout Review