If you were to build the greatest web page in the world but did not link back and forth to any other webpage then no search engine would find you and therefore no web surfer would ever find you. The way to fix this is to make sure that every chance you get you go and put your website address inside a website so that it can be seen by a search engine and also eventually by a buyer or seller. If you have a lot of links from other sites to yours then the search engines trust your site more and move you higher in the rankings for your pages most prominent keywords. In the search engine optimization world these links are called backlinks. There are two kind of links, The links between two sites when I link to you and you link to me, this is called reciprocal links, and the other kind which is just when I link to you, this type of link is the most coveted and hard to get as the other site must like yours enough to link to it.

As I have started a realtor directory to give Realtors another place to list their websites and weblogs I thought it would be a good time to let people know more ways to add strength to the weight that search engines will give to your website. A directories main function to the Realtor is to give the Realtor another link on the internet to know about his or her website.

Now that you know why it is important to list yourself in directories the next step is to find them. Do a search at Google, Yahoo and MSN and get yourself listed in all of the Realtor directories you can find.

Here are some things to think about when listing yourself in Realtor Directories:

• Use your site name with the first letter of each word capitalized, this will make your listing stand out against a sea of other listings.
• Make sure that your description is not selling you but instead listing benefits of your site...remember that you will probably have to be brief so look at your site and pick out the highlights someone would see on your Realtor website.
• Remember that the directory listing is like a small advertisement for your website not you, your entry in the Realtor directory is only to entice the reader to click on the link to let the website sell you as a Realtor that can be trusted.
• Make the link that is being published, probably the title, be the term you want to rank well with in the search engines. eg: real estate, or Realtor.
• Think carefully about what page that you want to have as the page people will get to, do you want it to be your home page?, a current listings page?, or a Realtor bio type page.
• Finally proofread and make sure that there are no spelling mistakes in the Realtor directory entry.

If you have a site and are wondering why there are not more people finding it, or if you are not ranked very high on some of the search engines than I hope this little directory primer has been a good eye opener for you to get more exposure to your site or weblog.