After playing with all the features of Windows 3.1, and not really understanding any of them, I went about checking this "Internet thing" out.

So, I stuck one of the many free America Online disks, that I had received in the mail, into my floppy disk drive. Shortly, I was online. "Now what?" I thought to myself.

I remembered reading about something called Yahoo. I didn't know what it was, but it sounded fun, so I made my way to the AOL browser and typed in 'yahoo'. As I followed link after link, never really getting anyplace, I soon became frustrated. I thought, "Is this what the Internet is? Clicking on links?" I closed the browser down, and didn't open it again for months. The Internet had turned out to be one of those things that sounded alot better than it really was. So, I spent a lot of time in the AOL chatrooms and was very proud of myself for making my way into "The Information Age."

Yahoo had scared me away. It was only when I was laid off from my job, and thought about looking online for another one, that I ventured back. But after a couple more feeble attempts, I stayed away from Yahoo. It was too complicated, with all those catagories.

When I put up my first web page, and I used some free submission services, I would skip right past Yahoo in the submission list. What a HUGE mistake!

I'm sure this is a familiar story to some of you. Yahoo can be intimidating if you don't understand it. And not many people do, understand how it works, that is.

Yahoo has many levels of catagories. (This accounts for all the clicking I was doing in the early days.) You can't just submit your site under "Advertising" or "Business Opportunities".

If you understand that you must go at least 3 levels deep in your category, it's not so intimidating. Let me explain.

When you go to http://www.yahoo.com there are 14 major categories listed, as well as many sub-categories. At the top of the page, there are four icons, NEW, COOL, TODAY'S NEWS, and MORE YAHOO'S. You'll notice that there is no ADD URL icon there, anymore. There used to be, but because of too many wrongly submitted sites, they took it off. Anyway....

When I submit my site, I click on BUSINESS. Up comes another 35 sub-categories to choose from. On this page, there IS and ADD URL icon, but we don't want to use it yet. The sooner you click on that icon, the less your chances are of getting listed. You need to be as targeted as possible. So, onward.....

Next, I click on MARKETING. Now we're narrowing it down. Only 13 sub-categories to choose from. I click on a couple, look at the NEW sub-categories, and decide that INTERNET BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS is what I want. Seven more sub-categories. I now choose, ADVERTISING ON WEB AND INTERNET. Four more sub-categories. We're getting there. (You can see why all this clicking, and not seeming to get anywhere would scare a newbie off).

Of these four sub-categories, my site doesn't really fit in any of them. It would seem I've hit my destination. I click on ADD URL at the top, and I'm on my way.

So, I've submitted my site four levels deep. Much more targeted than if I had submitted in, say, BUSINESS, considering all of the sub-categories.

All of these sub-categories, and levels, are why you MUST submit to Yahoo by hand. Even if you use some form of submission software, as I do, and it includes Yahoo in the list of sites, as mine does, you still should do it by hand. Your software won't go nearly as deep as you need.

It can take you up to 20 minutes to submit to Yahoo by hand, but it's time well spent. The Yahoo directory averages 180,000 "unique" hits, per month. It's estimated that, if you're listed, a whopping 50% of your hits, will come from Yahoo.

And, since all the submissions that Yahoo receives, are processed by an acutal human, it can take a few weeks to get listed. So, it's a good idea to submit to them every two months, or so. That way, once you get there, you'll stay there.

Kim Skinner, President of K & D Publishing, is the author of the HOT selling, new book, "INTERNET MARKETING TECHNIQUES THAT YOUR COMPETITION DOES NOT WANT YOU TO KNOW." Visit her site for lots of free advertising tips, up-to-the-minute marketing strategies and secrets for the online marketer. http://www.advertisingtips.net mailto:info@advertisingtips.net