Mask Venezia came to StreamCities needing a wholesale e-commerce website with password protected multiple user authentication, secure download area, video and photo-galleries. StreamCities customized a WordPress template and e-commerce system, designed a logo and branding scheme. The result? An attractive, easy to use website designed to drive sales to the Mask Venezia business.

So you built your website; congratulations! Are you getting any traffic? How are your sales? The fact is, if you build a website no matter how nice it is, few people will be able to find it initially and even fewer will visit it. I guarantee that there are many websites in your industry competing for viewers that you’d like to visit your website. If you built, or paid someone to build, a search search engine optimized website for your business, you’re off to a great start! Your next task? List your website in directories so you can begin to open up the traffic gates.

So how do you make the traffic begin to flow?

In the most simplest terms, you need to announce your website to the world; particularly to the search engines. In this article, I am going to discuss various free and paid resources to announce your website to the online world. This article is part one of a series of articles that are designed to help your company improve its search engine ranking and capture targeted traffic through optimization and various online marketing techniques. I invite you to subscribe to the StreamCities blog to be notified about our articles on web development, search engine marketing, social internet marketing techniques, online video production, graphics and creative development.

So let’s begin by using: GetListed.org

Would you open a retail store front without a sign? I am willing to bet not. Why would you launch a website without a sign? I am sure your front page has a logo, but how are people going to land on your front page if you have not placed a sign for them to find it? If you are new to the online world, or if you are looking to use the internet to improve your business, spend the next two hours announcing your website with a sign strategically placed inside well known web directories I am about to tell you about. Do this, before you spend one cent on keyword marketing, and I guarantee that your keyword marketing campaigns will benefit. The beautiful part? You can list your website on most of these directories for free, however, premium memberships are offered and can be well worth the cost. For myself, I begin the website directory listing process with a web listing resource called GetListed.Org. Not only does this website offer you a plethora of Search Engine Optimization techniques, it has a simple tool that allows you to enter your business name and your zip code, to find out if your website is listed on popular local directories. You shouldn’t be surprised to learn that if you have not personally listed your website in any of the directories on GetListed.org, that you will find a listing score of zero. Zero? Yes you will have a zero, but that is easy to change. GetListed.org will provide you your listing results and provide links to help you get your website listed on Google, Yahoo, Bing, Yelp and Best of the Web. So why is getting listed so important? As stated by the GetListed.org website,

“Claiming your listing gives you control over how the search engines index you and prevents spammers from hijacking it. It may also improve your search engine rankings and bring you more traffic.”

I am going to add the following statement:

“Web directories can add important back-links to your website. Back-links are one of the most valuable criteria that Google, and most other search engines, count in ranking your website in search results. If your back links come from websites that Google place a high value on, and if your back-links are relevant to the pages in your website, your website will move up in search engine ranking. ” In addition, these web directories offer tools for website owners market their business. Yelp for instance, offers people the opportunity to review your business. As scary as this may be to many website owners or brick and mortar businesses, this is the perfect opportunity to interact with your customers, and gain insight as to how others view your business. If your reviews are negative, listen to your customer’s opinions and make the appropriate changes to your business. You will be surprised at how customers respond to businesses that listen. If you listen to your customers, your customers will become your greatest ally and marketing tool.”

Once you have listed your website on Google, Yelp, Bing, Yahoo, and Best of the Web, I want you to list your website on the Open Directory Project. Why? The Open Directory Project is the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web, and it is one of the main sites used by Google to list your website in its search engine. Don’t expect to show up in Google’s search results, if you have not listed your website in the Dmoz directory.

It’s Time to Be Seen

The next order of business is to have a look a premium website called “Time to Be Seen“. This little gem of a web directory provides a complete suite of easy to use online marketing tools designed to help business owners market and advertise their websites on the web. As stated by Time to Be Seen:

“It’s time to be seen organically on top search engines, such as Google, Ask, Yahoo! and many more. The name of the game is getting your business visibilty. Time To Be Seen is a great place to expand your customer reach. TimeToBeSeen.com has been designed to use mainly automated processes in order to aggregate business information through search engines, directories, forums, social networks, and media sites with easy to use tools to make us the number one internet marketing resource center.”

With Time to be Seen, you list yourself by a geographically targeted location. You can increase your geographical reach by expanding your location in using ten mile increments, or by selecting more than one city, or by selecting a national listing. Prices start at $99 per month for a local listing, and go up to $895 per month for a national listing. So what will Time to Be Seen do for you beyond listing your website in a directory? Time To Be Seen provides business owners and website managers the ability to automate and manage the process of search engine optimization (SEO) and online marketing using Time To Be Seen’s integrated tools. With Time To Be Seen, you can:

• List keywords people would use to find your business type.
• Create a business description
• Upload and create coupons that will be syndicated to popular social media websites
• Announce and Manage Events
• Write and syndicate articles
• Manage products
• Upload and Manage Videos and Images
• Receive Messages and Communicate with Customers or Clients
• Embed search engine optimized RSS feeds that are relevant to your business, directly into your website.

The result? A dramatically increased Alexa.com ranking, a higher Google search engine ranking, and increased traffic to your website.

Next, Find Industry Specific Website Directories

For the next order of business, you need to search for and find industry specific web directories that list businesses in your industry. Industry specific web directories can have a dramatic effect on search engine placement because your website will gain a back link that is relevant to the content of your website. Google places a high score on these types of back links. For instance, if you are a hair stylist, esthetician, makeup artist, nail technician, or you own a beauty salon, you should consider an industry specific directory such as ShopAStylist. ShopAStylist lists salons and stylists and categorizes them by service offerings such as hair extensions, hair color, or men’s hair cuts. ShopAStylist also geographically categorizes businesses in locations in states and cities around the country. ShopAStylist is free to join and get a basic listing, and has various levels of premium listings designed to market your business.

ShopAStylist is just one example of an industry specific directory that can help benefit your business.

Contact StreamCities If you Need Help

So the aforementioned, should take about two hours from start to finish. Your next order of business is social marketing. In a future article, I am going to reveal some of the social marketing techniques I use to promote StreamCities, and my client’s businesses. If you are interested in contacting StreamCities regarding your web development, online marketing, or video project, please click here, or call us directly at 1-702-216-7300.

Season 3 of the Castrol Syntec Top Car Challenge was created and produced by StreamCities. The program is a great example of an “Adver-torial” series that combines real world drama with product placement and branding! Produced entirely in high-definition video, this series can be broadcast in HD on cable or satellite television, syndicated as a video podcast for television or iPhone playback, and also watched via Flash or Quicktime video players embedded in a web site. Stream Cities was hired to create all twenty-eight original video segments for title sponsor, Castrol Motor Oil and Source Interlink Media: Super Street, Import Tuner, Eurotuner, Honda Tuning, Lowrider, and Mustang & Super Fords Magazine.

Our work included all video production, post-production, animation, music sequencing and production, graphics, RSS feed creation and iTunes syndication.

Watch Sample Episode
[video filename=/SourceInterlink/TopCar2010/SuperStreetMagV1a.mp4 ongtail=true plugins=ltas longtailenable=true /]

Visit the Top Car web site

Hardcore clothing company Death Squad Clothing came to StreamCities to have an e-commerce website designed for their motor cross, ultimate fighting, and extreme sports line of mens and women’s clothing. StreamCities came up with a unique design for their wares featuring scrollable product images, a high-impact front page slide area, and an easy to use shopping cart system. Customers love the “Add to Wish List” feature, as well as a customer registration area that allows customers to save product information for future shopping.

Text marketing company, Omni Marketing Solutions needed a new website that could communicate to clients that power of text marketing in numerous industries. At the same time, Omni Marketing Solutions wanted an e-commerce solution to automate the sales process of their most popular text marketing solutions. StreamCities designed a corporate website that included an online store which allowed customers to purchase text marketing packages online. The website, www.textomni.com includes a resource center, a custom keyword tool, and sign-up forms.

Click Here to see the TextOmni.com website

In 2007 StreamCities produced the behind the scenes video of the Hot Bike Magazine photo shoot in Las Vegas. Featuring the beautiful UFC ring girl and model, Arianny Celeste, more than 300,000 DVDs were sold with the Hot Bike special edition magazine, “Hot Girls, Hot Bike”. StreamCities provided all the production and post-production work.

Watch one chapter from the DVD