Direct Hit and paid submissions

who to use?

[WebRookie]

I'm having little luck with listings on Direct Hit which doesn't make sense since our sites are popular. Hmmm.

What's the best way via paid submissions? Would it be GoTo or Inktomi? Will this help get you listed on Ask Jeeves as well? I've gotten nowhere with Ask Jeeves.

[Brett_Tabke]

Ink will be of little help. Go the route of Goto if you must. Low rankings on DH are indicative of meta descriptions in need of help. I have some pathetic pages that rank high on DH all the time simply because of the meta descriptions with good "click me now" value.

[jeremy goodrich]

I'm not exactly up on the butler...but for directhit I would say ditto.

And if you are going to use the paid route, I would definitely pay attention to the ROI.

[WebRookie]

Ah, ok...just re-wrote meta descriptions but haven't seen a change yet in the listings. The descriptions have been very generic up 'till now. I'll watch to see if this batch helps. Better go read the "ad copy" posting.

[Brett_Tabke]

That is exactly what you need to read WR. Those are great preps. It is a tough balance between the of the marketing/promo tongue and being interesting. It helps to stop and think why you click on search results when you see them. Once you get into that mind set of the user, you'll find meta descriptions just flow out easily. Too many people stress out trying to write the killer description - the 'killer description' is actually pretty subtle. Descriptions that scream at the user never work.

[WebRookie]

Really interesting stuff. Funny because the previous descriptions were written by a real writer (not me). Trying to tone down and edit some of the descriptions I use for submissions has been pretty interesting.

What is the "line" between descriptive and subtle sales spam? I've gotten bits of feedback and know some of the previous writing is considered too sales oriented.

I'm going to study some SERPS and see what the descriptions are like, my guess is our descriptions are a bit "dry".