Converting a Dreamweaver Template to an Expressions Template

What should be an easy task for Expressions is the recognition of Dreamweaver templates. Unfortunately, Microsoft rarely makes anything simple. Their help is void of any mention of Dreamweaver, or conversion of any other type of template… I mean, how dare you consider using another WYSWYG editor on your website! Well, in my case, Expressions is my preferable editor, while my daughter uses Dreamweaver on her MAC and I often purchase websites with Dreamweaver templates. So converting these templates by hand is something I’m used to doing. The good news is its not that difficult… which is what makes me wonder why MS didn’t give us that option?

Expressions (and Front Page) refer to a template region in their code using the following syntax:

<!– #BeginEditable “doctitle” –>     <!– #EndEditable –>

Anything you add for the specific page for the doctitle would go between the two tags, to look something like this:

<!– #BeginEditable “doctitle” –>My Web Page <!– #EndEditable –>

The first code is added by Expressions to the template. The second code with the title inserted in place of “My Web page” is what will be on the actual html page you build.

Similarly, Dreamweaver also uses the same type of coding, just in a different format.

<!– TemplateBeginEditable name=”doctitle” –>   <!– TemplateEndEditable –>

So the coding above is what you’ll find within the template (.dwt) file, and the following is similar to what you’ll see on an html page:

<!– TemplateBeginEditable name=”doctitle” –>My Web Page<!– TemplateEndEditable –>

I think you can now see what you need to do to make the Dreamweaver template work for Expressions. You need to make changes in all of the html, php, asp, etc. files AND the .dwt files for the website, by changing the Dreamweaver coding format to the Expressions coding. I use a program called NoteTab Pro when editing text files. The programming ability is quite extensive within the program, as is the ability to replace text within multiple files without having to open them. Before doing any editing on the website files, make sure you back them up first, so that you have something to fall back on if your search and replace goes really bad.

I first do a search and replace for the following code:
<!– TemplateBeginEditable name= ”

I replace it with this code:
<!– #BeginEditable ”

I then do the same with the end tag:

I do a search and replace for:
<!– TemplateEnd

And replace it with
<!– #End

Once you’ve made the changes in all of the files needed for the website, open the website in Expressions, and then open the template (.dwt file). You should get the following message:

Dynamic Web Changes

 

In order for a site to use a template, you must first set the option with the Site Settings area of the Site Menu to manage the site using metadata files. Once you select that, then any change you make to the template will be incorporated into the existing display pages.

Finally, even though Microsoft Expressions now recognizes that you are using templates with your site, you will still need to attach your actual template to the files. Select all of your site files in the file browser, Click “Format” and then “Dynamic Web Template” and choose to “Attach Dynamic Web Template.”

Best of luck!

Free Analytics for Social Media

Topsy released its new social media analytic tool a few days ago, and I thought the debut of the second season of NBC’s “Who Do You Think You Are” would be a great test of the type of metrics this new statistical tool can provide.

Who Do You Think You Are, or abbreviated as WDYTYA, is an NBC show based upon a BBC hit of the same name. Sponsored by Ancestry.com, the largest purveyor of genealogy information on the web, this show takes a look into a celebrity’s research into their family history. While initially that may not sound interesting to most people, this reality tv show does this by taking the celebrity to their ancestors home town and other historical areas. It actually becomes quite an intriguing look into the celebrities ancestors and the part they played in the history of the world.

I think this is a great subject matter to research because it may instantly give us an idea of the popularity of the show in comparison with other shows as it relates to twitter posts. It may also help highlight how a site such as Ancestry.com and the celebrity’s themselves may have also benefited from the showing. As a final note, I’ll take a look at how much interest the show may have generated by comparing genealogy specific keywords. So let’s take a look, shall we?

The initial image shows a comparison over the past month of names of three tv shows which all showed Friday, 5 Feb . 2011 at 8pm. I chose to not use “The Defenders” which aired on CBS because the Topsy search negates the word The and just used Defenders. That produced a high quantity of not-related tweet results. So the three shows I used in this example were Kitchen Nightmares on Fox, Who Do You Think You Are on NBC (by searching for WDYTYA), and Supernanny on ABC.

Screen clipping taken: 2/5/2011 2:06 PM
Screen clipping taken: 2/5/2011 2:06 PM

The results above shows the popularity of each show as it relates to tweets. Some caveats to mention. WDYTYA’s second season premiered on 4 Feb. 2011, Kitchen Nightmares Season 2 premiered on 22 Jan. and had its third showing on 4 Feb. Supernanny is in season 7, and showed episode 10 on 4 Feb.

Suppernanny’s results were less then accurate, though not as great an issue as it was with the Defenders. The fact that it was also the 10th episode of the season likely also hurt its rankings.

The results above show a significant interest in WDYTYA in the twittersphere, over previous days. It’s numbers indicate a higher interest in that show, then the other two shows. The question is, does that reflect accurately the shows viewership using more traditional methods such as Nielson Ratings?

Nielson initial results for that night shows using the Live Viewer ratings, showed that the top show of those three for the night was in fact WDYTYA with 7.291 million live viewers (or same day watchers in case of DVR), in comparison with Supernanny at 4.354 million and Kitchen Nightmares at 3.945 million. The Defenders was actually the most watched show during that time period maybe because it was the only non-reality tv show airing on the major networks?

When we take the Nielson numbers with the chart above, we do see a correlation between the numbers with some minor deviation. I was actually surprised that the chart did reflect the interest in WDYTYA, because the general audience of this show is much older then most shows. In fact it ranked 3rd in the 18-49 viewership, which I would expect since genealogy as a hobby is done by older adults… generally over 50.

The second chart I want to take a look at is going to investigate how much of a boost the season premier may have done for both Ancestry.com and Vanessa Williams, the celebrity for the night.

Screen clipping taken: 2/5/2011 2:38 PM
Screen clipping taken: 2/5/2011 2:38 PM

These were quite interesting showing the increased interest in both WDYTYA and Vanessa Williams. Ancestry.com itself showed about a 2x normal interest, however that does not compare to the numbers shown by the other two matches.

One of the purposes of the show “Who Do You Think You Are” is to increase the interest in genealogy overall. The final chart I’m showing here will give an idea on whether that has succeeded, at least in the twitter world:

Screen clipping taken: 2/5/2011 2:44 PM
Screen clipping taken: 2/5/2011 2:44 PM

While tweets using the word genealogy did not increase, those using Ancestry certainly did, and there was an overall increase or interest in the genealogy hobby reflected on Twitter.

I would like to hear your ideas on how you think this new analytical tool can help you in your web development!

Facebook Marketing Strategies

A recent review of over 11 thousand Facebook ads found that the ad market on Facebook is evolving. A Webtrends study analyzed 1,500 campaigns, 11.2 million ads, 2.2 million clicks, and 4.5 billion impressions. A quick review can be found here and then a link to the actual study at the bottom of the article.

Demand most often produces higher costs for the marketer, while decreasing the effectiveness of campaigns. Of no surprise to most who market on Facebook is that you are paying more for each click then you were just a year ago. The 2009 to 2010 difference though, is quite telling. Ad costs per click rose 81% while the actual c/t per ad dropped 19%. Yes, the overall cpm cost is still quite puny, at only 25 cents cpm during 2010, even though that reflects a 47% increase over just a year prior. The takeaway? The longer you wait to begin your campaign on Facebook, the costlier that campaign will likely become.

But there are some metrics you can use to increase your Facebook marketing effectiveness:

Marketing that targets mid-life adults (45-64) will produce the highest c/t rate, and that the difference in c/t rate is quite substantial. A 55 year old is almost 3x as likely to click a Facebook ad then an 18 year old. And if the 55 year old you’re targeting is a woman then that percentage is likely to increase even more. If you need to market to a younger audience though, there are several methods you can use to increase your c/t rate:

  1. Increase Effectiveness using Social Brands
    Google AdSense is so effective, because it targets a users interest at that very moment with a marketers ad. This study shows that if you’re marketing a social brand, then Facebook will likely give you a better c/t rate as your ad will perform better. That’s not that surprising and should have been surmised by the fact that users using a social site would be more inclined to click on a social ad. When writing your copy is there a way you can key into this social awareness on Facebook to increase your c/t’s?
  2. Target Non College Educated
    If your ads are not specifically college related, then targeting non college educated fans will increase your c/t by an average of 87 percent. Using the friends of fans feature on these same fans will increase your c/t by an additional 32%.
  3. Use Friends of Fans to Target College Educated
    If you need to target specifically college educated fans then use the friend of fan targeting. This study found that using the friends of fans feature can increase the c/t rate by 113% for college educated fans.

Probably the most important metric that came out of this study is the diminishing return on your ad. Ad staleness is nothing new, but the unusual quickness in which this occurs on Facebook… only 3-5 days per ad, means marketers on Facebook will have to spend more time managing their ads then they may have through other advertising means. Using the friends of fans feature can diminish the speed of deterioration, but deteriorate your ad will do, until it is removed by Facebook as no longer effective.

What reason would there be for such a rapid loss in Facebook marketing effectiveness? Likely the issue lies someplace between the nature of social marketing, ad staleness, and visual blindness. Which of those three contributed, wasn’t discussed in the report, which concentrated more on the facts then on supplication, so your guess is as good as mine. The underlying fact can not be ignored though, your ads effectiveness will deteriorate rapidly on Facebook until it is removed. Make sure you have a game plan in place to prepare for that.

While this study provides some great insights into the likelihood of a user clicking on your ad, and how to keep your ad viable on Facebook, it doesn’t touch the more important factor of fan conversion. Basically, it’s studying the wrong metric. The most important metric isn’t how many c/t’s you get (except maybe for Facebook itself), it’s how well you can convert a c/t, and at what cost. Getting 600 females 55 years old to c/t to my ad, but only 1 conversion, is less effective then getting 200 males 20 years old, when I get 5 conversions of those 200. And this is ultimately Facebook’s dilemma. Their engagement metrics are more concerned with the effectiveness of your ad on their site, then they are with the effectiveness of your ad producing sales for you!

Some other posts which provide a unique look into this data:

A Review of Need an Article

I first stumbled upon Need an Article in June of 2009. At that time I joined their website and initiated a request for 10 articles to be written. The following review details the results of my experience in obtaining those articles, and the value of the writing service being provided.

The site boasts itself as “a market area for customized website content that you request.” Indeed they do appear to be transitioning to that, but in June of 2009 they were primarily an article writing service. Scott Foster is the owner of the website, and he, his staff and writers attempt to hold down the fort of what can often be a daunting task. Especially when the requests for writing come in fast and furious.

My initial usage of this service was to request 10 articles. What subject I chose is immaterial, unless you’re merely trying to copy me instead of create for yourself. Let’s just say, I did my homework before I requested the articles and looked at the possible keywords.

The actual process of requesting the articles was quite simple:

  1. I joined their program.
    Probably the only downfall for most users will be getting past the $9.95 a month fee for the writing service. I believe however that you sometimes have to pay for a better and easier service. I imagine, but don’t have any proof, that the $9.95 is paid out to Scott, while the writing costs is primarily (if not all) paid out to the writers. Whatever the split, it’s a justifiable expense in my eyes, if the concept works.
  2. I watched a video on submitting an article writing request.
    Scott has placed on the website several videos which can provide you a better understanding of how to use their service properly and easily.
  3. I purchased credits to use for the purchase of the articles.
    The site is set up on credit usage. Basically, in addition to the $9.95 charge you will also need to purchase credits in order to use the credits to purchase the articles. The $$$ cost of the articles are extremely in-expensive. I’ve seen similar websites selling 300-400 word articles at $15 each. My 10 articles would end up costing me $125.00. The cost of the articles at Need an Article is based upon the length of the articles: 550 words – $ 5.52 ; 750 words – $ 9.03 ; 1000 words – $ 12.50.
  4. I gathered up my research and wrote out a lengthy request.
    One of the requirements of the website is that you don’t simply give out a keyword to the writers and request articles back. They also want you to conduct some initial research online as to where the writer can gather material from. My request contained an idea of the style of writing I was looking for (scholarly but simple) as well as the specific keyword phrase for each article, and then a series of URLS for each article to provide resources for the writer to research the subject. Note: This is not meant for you to give one URL to the writer and say rewrite that article…
  5. I input all of the information into their online form.
    My submission requested 10 articles to be an average of 1,000 words, with none less then 750 and none more then 1250. By doing this I gave some leeway to the writer to provide a shorter article if there was limited material (I’m not one for filler words). I did not request any long-tail keywords to be included in the articles, feeling I would rather input them if I chose that path, knowing that I would read over and for SEO purposes, even if they were the best written articles.

A couple of hours later I received a reply by mail stating that my articles had been applied, which basically meant that one of the writers had applied for the job of writing my articles. This writer immediately contacted me via IM on their site to request some further information, and to let me know that she actually had experience in the field I was looking for articles on… that was an extra bonus I didn’t expect, since the subject matter was more scientific then my usual stuff.

Probably the only hiccup in the whole process was that it took the writer longer then she had anticipated it would to write the articles. However, I told her from the start I was not in a rush, and would rather have quality over speed. Instead of getting them a week later, it took her two weeks to complete the task. But the articles I finally got were superb!

My first step was to run them through Copyscape to insure that I wasn’t being misled since these were my first articles I’d purchased from the service. They were clean. The highest match was 25 of 856 words similar… very acceptable for an article. The articles were authoritative without being complex… exactly what I had asked for!

Its now 18 months later, my initial $125 purchase, plus the $9.95 a month, turned into an earnings of $2,590.18 via Google AdSense alone, not including other sources I also derived income from but did not track separately… And I did it using only 1/2 of the original 10 articles I received. One major caveat, I placed these articles on a highly trafficked website. Together these 5 articles plus an index page received about 72,000 page impressions over the 18 months… very little of those page views came from search engines, but rather through my own site.

Visit Need an Article

NOTE: The links in this article are not affiliate links. I gain nothing from them. This is not a paid review!

Developing an Online Presence in 5 Easy Steps

As we begin to concentrate on the development and expansion of our garden websites in anticipation of Spring 2011, I have decided to delve into the social online world, and begin making use of the variety of social bookmarking and communication tools. My first action is to create a persona of an avid gardener whose main enjoyment in life is to get his fingers dirty as he gets down on his hands and knees and tends his own backyard garden. To make this believable I will use a variety of social tools online to create and give a real face to this man, albeit not mine.

Some may wonder why I would go to the trouble of creating a persona instead of using my own name and likeness? I think it really depends on what your future intent is with the websites you are developing. If your intent is to develop a website to own and run for the foreseeable future then you may want to brand that website around your real name and likeness – like I do with Webified Development. However, if your plan is to create and sell the website, then you would likely not want your own name tied to the website, as once it leaves your hand, your identity could be assumed by the new owners. To prevent my identity from being assumed by a future owner, I’ve chosen to create an identity online, which will become the face of the garden sites created by Webified Development. I can then sell this identity to new owners, along with all of the social accounts tied to that identity, without risking my personal identity being taken.

You should completely plan out your new identity before initiating its creation. Not to have it mapped out in advance, may have you rethinking your strategy as you go, and cause you to do twice the amount of work. Here’s some ideas to think about in advance:

  1. Email Presence
    You will first want to create an email around this persona, hobby, or company. Yahoo, Gmail, and even Social Shake can provide you with a choice of email addresses. Using social shake might actually be the better bet, as it also enables you to create an online identity that can then be found and indexed by Google, and there’s less competition for keyword rich names. It merely serves as a redirection to your existing email account.
  2. Create an Image
    You will want to use a likeness image of your new persona. You can download stock photography from a variety of websites online. I use IStockPhoto.com. I suggest you find a variety of photographs using the same individual, hopefully in different outfits, to increase the effectiveness of the persona.
  3. Create a Life
    Now that you have a set of photos you can use which reflect the identity of this new persona, you can create a set of facts concerning this person, such as age, location, marital status, etc…. in this case it was important that my gardener reflect the location of the area he is photographed gardening in. It would be easily seen if I presented photos of my gardener in a desert that he didn’t live in Florida! Now that you have those life facts, you’ll be able to fill in the fields at the social sites!
  4. Use Social Sites
    The next step is to choose a list of social sites that you can register with and begin to utilize. Don’t rush this process… but build up your list of social activities over time, devoting 15-30 minutes a day for this sole purpose. Don’t approach this as an SEO purpose, but as a social exercise where your persona is establishing contacts and followers in the field of interest.
  5. Join Only Wire
    OnlyWire.com is a tool that can be used to post snippets, and bookmarks to a variety of Social media websites online. There is a fully functional free version, and a paid version. I use it in simplifying the process of submitting bookmarks of my articles to a variety of social sites dedicated to bookmarks. As you create your accounts with the Social Bookmark Sites, you can register them with OnlyWire, so that when you make an article post, it gets distributed to all of your bookmark sites at once. Don’t forget to also continue the creation of your Social Shake account by providing the social sites to your identity there.

Keyword Domains – An Analysis

There are myriads of discussions online debating the effect of selecting domains which are keyword rich. “Ann Smarty” recently made a post on SearchEngineJournal which, while recognizing the effectiveness of this in past practice, suggests that it is becoming less successful. This theory of hers is based on two points:

  1. this has been abused by spammers registering hundreds of “long-tail” domains to rank them for exact match;
  2. today it is almost impossible to get hold of any “exact match” domains that wouldn’t be too long or pointless.

I’m not an expert in SEO or as experienced as “Ann” is, but I find some serious flaws in the two points she provided above. The first really really really obvious mistake is point #2. I found a domain just today which contained two words, eleven letters, and I was able to pick up the .org version with a dash between the two words. Google’s Adwords Keyword Tool showed that the two word keyword combination had over 110,000 searches in the US during the month of May, and over 240,000 on average global searches. I was able to repeat this several times with different 2 word combinations, and while the .com was consistently taken, it was rarely developed. In all of my examples there were at least one possible match for the two keywords, using one of the three top domains, .com, .net, and .org. While my selection of an .org domain is less then desirable, especially if it applies to a commercial product, it does refute her claims of whether they are still available. She did after all use the words “almost impossible.”

The first point she provides is unsubstantiated, but, it does hold some merit. Spammers have abused the long-tail domain market; however, as with most things, spammers have abused all domain names whether long-tail or not. Let’s face it, if spammers would just go away, the whole world would be better off. As long as they can make a penny where you and I make a dollar, however, they’ll continue to spam in such bulk as to make up the difference. Google doesn’t need to punish domain names in order to punish a site which is clearly being used for no purpose other then spamming for search traffic. Their secret algorithm is fined tuned enough that a website designed solely around a name will lack sufficient weight to get it high enough in Google’s serps to be seen by the average browser.

I believe that keywording a domain does help you. While the effectiveness may be diminishing, it isn’t because Google is punishing it. And a good website developer can still find sufficient long-tail keywords to develop legitimate websites around. The usage of this method doesn’t insure you instant wealth. But it does give you a leg up on your competition.

To read the actual article by “Ann” and the indepth followup conversation visit: How Much Weight Do Keywords in the Domain Name Still Have (Poll)?

Round 4 – WL Marketing Directory Submission Review

This is a followup post to the review of WL Marketing’s Directory Submission service.

In the first installement in this series I had reported that my website was submitted to 156 directories. Of those 156 directories, 135 responded by email, 2 listings were approved and 1 was rejected within the first day.

In the second installment in this series I reported that my website had been submitted to a total of 310 directories with 5 approved and 3 rejected within the first week.

In the third installment in this series I reported that my website had been submitted to a total of 469 directories with 34 approved and 4 rejected within two weeks.

This post comes two weeks after the fourth and final submission to directories by WL Marketing. In the fourth week, WL Marketing submitted the website to an additional 200 directories.

The stats as of today are:

669 directory submissions
173 were approved
7 were rejected
489 remain pending

The high level of pending submissions a month into the directory submissions is disheartening. These are submissions that WL Marketing has made, but that the directory website admin has failed to either approve or deny. I will address this fact in a later followup as we get an idea of how many free directories are actually just front ends for paid directories (meaning only the paid submissions are reviewed and approved).

Facebook Marketing

I recently attended the National Genealogical Society conference in Raleigh, North Carolina, where I was able to meet with several genealogical companies, and socialize with a few acquaintances.  One of the items that was consistently brought up was the success of FamilyLink’s “We’re Related” Facebook application. It was mentioned that they’d had an incredible success story with their introduction of this application on Facebook. That made me wonder as to the viability of marketing using Facebook, so I picked up a copy of Facebook Marketing by Steven Holzner, and sat down to read it this past weekend.

The book itself delves long into the actual workings of Facebook, taking the reader through the steps of targeting your profile, Facebook groups, creating pages, hosting Facebook events, etc. It quickly became clear to me that the back cover of the book says it well “traditional marketing methods won’t work here.”

Which marketing methods work there, are very little. It’s probably the reason why Facebook is struggling to gather income from its own internal marketing methods. The members of Facebook are using the site for entertainment and socializing purposes and they don’t want to be interrupted by advertisements. In fact, in reviewing several widely commented applications, some members appear to be almost hostile in receiving what they deem as “spam” and marketing. The reason? The spam and marketing messages make the usage of Facebook not fun.

So the crutch is how to make your marketing attempts at Facebook useful and fun for the users, while still getting your marketing message across? In that one sentence, I’ve saved you a lot of time in reading this book. Steven, the author, goes about detailing the minute features of Facebook, often simply copying and pasting the very help sections of Facebook into the manuscript. And these minute details take up a whole lot of space and your time, if you even read them. But the point he is trying to get across is valid, and very important.

So what methods does Steven suggest you use, to get your marketing out? In order to find that out, read the book… However, I will share some of my own findings while working with Facebook:

1) If you can develop an application which interacts with your existing website, then this is likely the best marketing method for you. But be prepared to support it. You get one good chance to impress the Facebook audience with your application… don’t blow it.

Make your application fun or useful, better yet, make it fun and useful! Be attentive to the users of your applications. Have somebody constantly monitoring the comments for your application page, and have them respond immediately to all comments. Don’t have the manpower to allow this? Then reconsider creating an application.

2) Facebook does have advertising methods. At a minimal $5 a day, and no commitment time, this is quite affordable for most marketers. This is also a more traditional source of advertising for companies unfamiliar with social marketing. However, as much as I enjoy clicking an ad just to see the marketing pitch, I’ve yet to do so at Facebook. Yep, not one ad clicked. The good thing with this method, is you can opt to pay by click… so at least if nobody clicks, you don’t pay.

3) Socialize. Find groups that interest you and socialize with them. This is what Facebook is about. Be prepared to give a lot of time and effort into an unproven method of marketing though. Once you have established yourself in the Facebook community as an active, trusted user, you can then spin some marketing messages out in your socializing. As an over-worked, unable-to-manage-my-time effectively, webpreneur though, I really don’t want to market in this method. Especially since the overall success is in doubt.

All in all, the book, Facebook Marketing, was an easy read. But it lacked substance, not because Steven was unable to articulate the methods he suggests you use for marketing with Facebook, but from the fact that there are so little marketing methods possible with Facebook at this time. Steven wrote a very detailed analysis of what one would expect if they had read a Facebook Guide. In fact, that might be a better title for the book: A “Facebook Guide – with marketing tips thrown in!”

Whilst browsing Facebook this weekend, I took a more careful look at the “We’re Related” Facebook application. If you browse the Facebook Applications I found that the “We’re Related” application was first on the page, even though it has only 2 stars. It makes me wonder if developers can pay additional monies for a better ranking to get themselves position higher? The “Verified Application” button that accompanies many applications, does get them listed higher in the ranks, and does cost the developers money… while at the same time, it appears to have little or no weight on the actual effectiveness of the application, regardless of Footnote’s claim to the contrary.

The We’re Related application currently has 13,492,725 monthly active users. While quite effective, earlier in the year it was approaching 17 million monthly users… the recent drop may be in part that like most family tree’s, once the data is entered, there’s little to be done for the casual user (the fun has worn off), and the fact that increasingly the application has become very buggy. While changes are being made to the application regularly, the developers seem to be making the changes they feel are needed, instead of listening to their users… this has the effect of upsetting many current users.

The App Data for We’re Related shows that they lost almost 3 million users over a 2 day period at the beginning of May. This may be in part to the buggy nature of the application.

We’re Related Application Data

It is apparent by the success of We’re Related that a well conceived application which takes advantage of the social tools which Footnote presents can do well. What isn’t known however, is how successful has this been for FamilyLink in promoting their family of websites, and has it been cost effective? Before I’d want to delve into developing an application I’d like to have a blueprint established for profitability. How about you?

Round 3 – WL Marketing Directory Submission Review

This is a followup post to the review of WL Marketing’s Directory Submission service.

In the first installement in this series I had reported that my website was submitted to 156 directories. Of those 156 directories, 135 responded by email, 2 listings were approved and 1 was rejected within the first day.

In the second installment in this series I reported that my website had been submitted to a total of 310 directories with 5 approved and 3 rejected within the first week.

Today marks the third week of this report, and 15 days since the initial submissions. Last night WL Marketing submitted the third set of submissions to 159 additional directories. This is the first week in which I note that they’ve submitted to “new” directories, or, directories which yet have no PR themselves.

The stats as of this morning are:

469 directory submissions
34 approved
4 rejected

Round 2 – WL Marketing Directory Submission Review

This is a followup post to the initial review of WL Marketing’s Directory Submission service.

In the first installement in this series I had reported that my website was submitted to 156 directories. Of those 156 directories, 135 responded by email, 2 listings were approved and 1 was rejected.

Today marks the second week of this report. Last night WL Marketing submitted the second set of submissions to 154 directories. This time I noted that they came back in and checked for those requiring confirmation, and confirmed the submission, which they should have done the first week.

The stats as of this morning are:

310 directory submissions
5 approved
3 rejected