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A year or two back, I was discussing geographical references in directory descriptions with an acquaintance who was ODP editor, and he advised me that ODP would allow only one... and that, if I submitted the above, either "Los Angeles" or "Southern California" would probably be edited out and I'd be losing control of which reference would remain.
In considering how to make such a submission to Yahoo, I come up with some thoughts that might be mutually exlusive. The most applicable place for my primary listing, even with the regional references, seems to be a national category. I plan to request a less applicable regional category for a second listing.
First, does anyone know whether the above unwritten rule about more than one geographical reference does, in fact, apply to Yahoo? I'm asking the following questions assuming that it does....
If it does and I have to make a choice, I would tend to drop the reference least likely to be searched... ie, for the main listing, to keep the city name and drop "Southern California."
For the regional listing, though, which would contain "Los Angeles" in the category name, this strategy has another complication... the city name in a description there might be redundant and could get edited out. In ODP, I've usually managed to squeeze city names in, because most ODP descriptions aren't searched just on ODP. In Yahoo, it may not matter whether I get the city name in the description, because Yahoo descriptions aren't used elsewhere... so only the Yahoo algo applies.
But it would be nice, in the regional listing, if "Los Angeles" is dropped from the description, to include the "Southern California" reference. In the Yahoo submission process, though, there's no place in the Yahoo form for submitting two descriptions.
So, how do I let Yahoo know I want "Southern California" in the regional listing?
And... is the city name likely to get cut in the regional category, and, if so, is there a way to submit the area reference too (or, is this a Catch-22 situation, as I've described)?
If the buseinss or site is specific to a particular region it will probably be placed in that regional category. If the description submitted supports that, then there is more reson for the editor to list it only in the regional category.
I'm working with one financial services company that is licenced in about 5 states so our strategy is to go with a topical category and list the states in which they do business.
Other similar sites are listed this way and we are able to cover both topical and regional searches this way.
That doesn't sound quite like what you have described, Robert, but somewhat similar.
The description:
"Los Angeles based widget installation and repair company, provides blah blah and blah blah in Southern California."
would seem to be saying put me in a California or LA category unless the site makes it blantantly obvious that the company does business in more states than California.
I'd go for a good regional match first if I could find one. The regional categories get so thin that there isn't anything that fits...
A regional category would solve the problem of the geographical references though... I could effectively get both, one via the category name and the other by including "Southern California" in the description. I'm guessing it would probably be safest to submit to a regional category with both references and let them do the editing (shudder), since, if I ended up in a different category, I wouldn't want to lose my prime (Los Angeles) location reference.
you've got the right idea. cover region in the cat. name, get the city in the description; its gotta be one or the other. if you try both you could get burned.
i'd suggest going regional, with a city specific description. maybe even something like "serving the greater Los Angeles community" - implying that your site is BIGGER than LA, but still LA focused.
whenever possible i always make my descriptions as small as possible. they say 25 words or whatever; i try to keep it to 12-15, tops. the worst thing you could do is leave the editing up to Yahoo. no telling what they'll do. give em something short, sweet, and accurate and make their job easy. get too aggressive and you could end up with nothing.
seoboy
A couple of things:
It is possible to get a website into more then one category with geographic motivation if it warrants it. We have managed to get 4 category listings for one of our destination websites.
I do not think that it is possible (via the normal submission process) to customize the title or description per category. Basically, you get the same title and description displayed in each cat.
In our titles, we have never had a problem getting more then one region into our description.
If it was my money and submission, I would shoot for both. I would be careful about how I wrote the description though!
SEOBoy's last paragraph about short and sweet is on the money!
Thanks... I'm a firm believer in short and sweet myself with directory descriptions. I've even posted a few suggestions myself to that effect.
>>We have managed to get 4 category listings for one of our destination websites<<
How did you do this? Multiple paid submissions? Or requesting additional categories in the BizEx appeal email? The original submission form only allows room, as I remember, for one additional category request....
The problem with this submission is that it was sometime back (about 15 months) and their policies may well have changed.
They listed my site in region and city as well.
Type in "gorp" and check how many pages come up for one site!
Pete - That's my point... as I remember, you only get enough room for submitting one primary and one secondary.
>>Type in "gorp" and check how many pages come up for one site!<<
I wonder whether they got there by click-through popularity or by Page Rank? ;)
we couldn't figure any other reason other than that it had to be an "inside" job. maybe the same deal here.
seoboy
