For this week’s WebProNews eBusiness Directory Blog post, I thought I would take the time to mention some of the events and highlights that have been happening on WebProNews Video, which is another tier of this directory’s search and eBusiness news site of WebProNews.

The WebProNews Video team travels all around the country, visiting various SEO, blogging, and technology expos to bring you quality and content-rich video presentations and interviews from events, such as: Search Marketing Expo (SMX), Search Engine Strategies (SES), and BlogWorld. Recently at BlogWorld, our team had the chance of interviewing the following celebrities:

Kevin Pollak

Do you remember the brownie “Rool” from Willow, or pool-cleaning dad from She’s All That? Stand-up comedian Kevin Pollak discusses how he is using social media to help promote and present his online, round-table interview site of Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show.

Anthony Edwards

Most of you probably remember Anthony Edwards as ER’s Dr. Mark Greene and “Goose” from Top Gun, but you probably do not know him for his charity work. With this in mind, Edwards spoke to WebProNews Video about how he is using social media to help get the word out about his special charity and how social media is a communication tool for other charities as well.

For interviews from other well-known celebrities regarding search and social media, please visit WebProNews Video. Our directory also has some other great resources like those mentioned above that can be found in the Social Media Blogs category.

If you have recently submitted your business’ website(s) to the WebProNews eBusiness Directory using our quick-and-easy submission form, you would have been re-directed to a page called WebProNews Tools. This page acts as an online utility belt that will help enhance your B2B (business-to-business) and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) experiences in a portal-type arrangement.

As you can see from the image above, the layout of WebProNews Tools had a makeover for a more appealing and organized design, providing the various tiers mentioned below:

• Featured Tools – These tools are hand picked from the list of tools as features that may benefit your SEO experience. These are also highly recommended from our WebProNews team.
• Top Headlines – If you are unfamiliar with our directory’s parent site of WebProNews, we have provided a small glimpse of the most recent stories to be published on our content-rich and informative eBusiness and Search news and video site, covering breaking stories relating to: social media, web trends, and online technologies.
• Website Tools – These tools are designed to help boost your business website’s presence on the internet, along with various social media tools and web resources. For a full description of these tools, please check out the original blog post when these web applications were first launched on our tools page.

If you are new to the SEO world and want to start exploring resources to help promote your business website’s products and presence on the web, I would recommend checking the WebProNews Tools page on a regular basis, because the news and tools vary as new SEO trends develop.

Please feel free to leave a comment to provide feedback on how these tools have helped promote your business website and online experience. You can always let me know if you have any questions regarding these tools as well.

Happy Submitting!

In my support inbox this past week, I received an e-mail from a prospective WebProNews eBusiness Directory submitter who wanted to know what the benefits of being included in our directory are. With this in mind, I thought it would be informative to share with you what the various benefits of being included in our directory are:

1. Part of WebProNews – Being listed in our directory, you are a part of WebProNews and have contributed a part of your interest to us. This also comes with bragging rights with having your website listed on a WebProNews page, especially because it is a very reputable and content-rich eBusiness and Search news site.
2. A Backlink From Us – From an SEO standpoint, backlinks help to get your business’ website more visible on search engine results and help improve your ranking. With this premise, you are more than welcome to have a backlink from us, and we would be glad to be a part of your SEO improvements and experiences.
   (Speaking of SEO, have you checked out our directory’s Search category? It is filled with a vast and unique amount of SEO-related resources.)
3. Being Listed In a High-Quality Directory – Since our directory is a counterpart of the highly-trafficked website WebProNews, it gets a lot of traffic from various web surfers browsing for resources for their business. Having your business’ website listed within our categories exposes your business to this traffic to help increase the clientele of your business and also to form business relationships with other members and non-members of this great foundation of resources.
4. Human-Edited – Yes, our directory is completely moderated by a human being, meaning that there are no robots rejecting quality sites that don’t meet their picky criteria. All site listings are reviewed and then categorized into the best niche that fits your website’s target audience.

Taking all of the information listed above into consideration, why not submit to this quality directory? Submission to this directory and inclusion is completely free of charge to you.

Happy Submitting!

If there are any Australian twitter users who read this blog/newsletter, this edition is written with you in mind. This past week, the Twellow development team launched a new tier to its area for helping find local users, based on their geographic location, called TwellowHood.

Up until just recently, TwellowHood only included North America and Canada. Now, this great service includes the southern island-continent of Australia! Go take a look!

This awesome new Australian search tool contains the following states and territories:

• Australian Capital Territory
• New South Wales
• Northern Territory
• Queensland
• South Australia
• Tasmania
• Western Australia
• Victoria

If you are reading this from another country that is not the U.S., Canada, or Australia, don’t fret! The Twellow development team is diligently working to make TwellowHood available for every country across the globe.

If you have any questions regarding Twellow, please feel free to contact their support department. They would happy to answer any questions that you may have regarding this awesome Twitter user directory service.

Happy Surfing!

About one year ago, previous WebProNews eBusiness Directory editor Chris Crum wrote an article describing the usefulness and importance of our quality directory and how beneficial your business’ website(s)’s inclusion is inside it. Since the time that our directory went live, we have not changed any policies or promises. This is so that you, the user, can feel confident and comfortable about submitting your business’ website to be listed in our resourceful directory.

Here are some interesting statistics on the WebProNews eBusiness Directory:

• Our directory (to-date) lists approximately 7,450 business’ websites in our listings. This is a great number of websites, because it helps keep our directory concise and diverse to help you pinpoint exactly what you are looking for.
• Our directory has 278 eBusiness-related categories. These categories all cater to the eBusiness niche and to help you find what you are wanting in a easier, faster, and better way.
• Our directory receives approximately 300-400 page views per day. This helps give our directory a lot of traffic and means that a lot people are using our directory to find resources that matter.

With these points in mind, here are some of the benefits of being listed within the WebProNews eBusiness Directory:

• It’s Free! – That’s right! Submitting your business’ website(s) to be included in our quality directory is completely free of charge. This is made possible with thanks to the advertising listed on our site. You will not be required to pay for your submission, nor be billed for monthly inclusion.
• You’re a Part of WPN – Once that you have submitted your business’ website to us, it means that you are giving something to us. WebProNews and its services are great resources to keep with us, and your submission helps complete the circle.
• It’s Human-Edited – This way we can maintain the excellence of the directory by listing quality business websites that matter to you and to the eBusiness niche. Another bonus of this directory being human-edited is that you can contact us to change the title and/or description of your site listing. This is a plus, especially if your business products and needs change, you are not stuck with an old, non-relevant listing.

Do you have any questions about the WebProNews eBusiness Directory? Whether it is how to modify your listing or any general inquiries, I would be glad to help you. All that you have to do is to use our directory’s quick-and-easy contact form, and your inquiry will be answered within 12-24 hours.

Happy Submitting!

The well-known social media giant Facebook is a great way to keep up and interact with friends, celebrities, and businesses. With this in mind, iEntry has created an online presence for WebProNews on this great tool.

Social networking is becoming a great way to keep people in-the-know about your business (especially from a B2B angle), so we thought we would get involved in this great way to interact with our readerbase. Check out our business page by clicking on the image below:

The great advantages of being a part of our online presence on Facebook are to:

• Stay up-to-date with current events from WebProNews in your news feed!
• Connect with other Facebook users relating to WebProNews topics!
• Like/agree with a story on WebProNews? Make it known by clicking on the ‘like’ button/link associated with every news story on Facebook!
• Share WebProNews stories on your own profile!

If you are already involved with Facebook, feel free to become a fan by clicking on the “Become a Fan” link
that is located under “WebProNews Cotags” area. You can also:

• Suggest to Friends – Suggest our WebProNews Facebook Page to other people who do not know about this yet or may be interested in our site’s content.
• Subscribe via SMS – Get our WebProNews Facebook Page on-the-go on your mobile/cellular device.

Have any questions regarding our WebProNews Facebook Page? Please feel free to contact me via our directory’s contact form, and I would be glad to answer any questions that you may have. Also, be on the look out for future directory updates there as well!

Happy Surfing!

Along with WebProNews providing its own eBusiness directory and blog, it also provides a video blog.
When our dedicated video team ventures off to conferences and happenings, they are able to bring you the very latest news, tips, and interviews from the big names of internet search and eBusiness companies. These videos can be found on our WebProNews Video Blog. If you do know about our video blog, but haven’t visited it recently, you may want to check it out since various changes have been made.

The new WebProNews Video Blog has been divided up into two tiers:

• Featured Videos – These videos have been hand picked for relevance concerning current happenings in the eBusiness world. Any trending topics will be posted in this section.
• Recent Videos – This is an archive of videos that we have recently published and also ones we have published in the past. Looking for a video from a recent conference? This is the place to look!

The various topics and debates that our videos comprise are: Gaming, Paid Search, Public Relations, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media, and Web Design. Our video team gathers this content from conferences around the U.S., such as Ad Tech, Search Marketing Expo (SMX), Search Engine Strategies (SES), and many more! If there is a conference relating to search engines and/or social media, you can be sure that our video team will be there, along with breaking, content-rich videos on the WebProNews Video Blog.

Have Twitter and want to keep up with updates of breaking videos from WPN? No problem! Just simply follow our WPN video account of @wpnvideos.

If you are an on-the-go type person and want to keep up with WebProNews with your busy schedule, there are other ways to keep up with our quality, content-rich service. We currently have approximately 500,000 subscribers, and not all of them can keep up with our website, so we have provided other means to stay up-to-date and in touch with our site. These other media are:

• Our Twitter Account. We know that many of our subscribers use Twitter to keep up-to-date with friends and other services around the web. With this premise, we have created an account just for this purpose. Every time a story breaks on WPN, it will automatically be tweeted to @webpronews.

  

• Our Facebook Page. Facebook is a great way to stay in touch with friends and services and has been ever since it was a college-only service. Who knew that it would become such an integral part of services around the internet? With this in mind, I would like to bring your attention to the WebProNews Facebook Page. This is a great way to stay connected with WPN, along with fellow subscribers. If you are on Facebook, simply go up to the Search text box and type in “WebProNews” (without quotes), and our page will automatically appear for you. Feel free to become a fan of us as well!

  

• Our RSS Feed. If you keep up with information on your cellphone or BlackBerry, RSS feeds are the way to go. WPN’s RSS feed is always updated and can be accessed through http://feeds.feedburner.com/WebpronewsTopNewsRssFeed.

  

These are just a few ways that you can keep up-to-date with happenings on WebProNews. If there are any other ways that we can bring WPN to you, please let us know, and we will be glad to assist you.

This past week, the WebProNews eBusiness Directory was mentioned in two different newsletters. One of these newsletters was Jayde Listing Notes, a publication that is sent out by iEntry’s well-known B2B search engine Jayde.com, and also Directory Listing Notes, a publication that is sent out to all iEntry directory participants. So, you could say that our directory has had some excellent exposure.

Along with the various submissions that have been submitted lately, I have been noticing a trend of erroneous submissions, so I thought I would share some tips that would better your inclusion in our quality directory.

• Be eBusiness Specific – Try and keep your submissions as close to our directory’s categories as possible. I have been seeing some submissions about jewelry and fashion stores, and unfortunately our directory does not have any related categories specific to that niche and have to reject them. Please submit sites relating to eBusiness content or anything that is talked about on our parent site WebProNews. If your site is eBusiness related, and you do not see a category in our directory that would best fit your website, please feel free to contact me with your business’ category suggestion.
• Your Site is Live – I have been seeing submissions where the website is either under construction or a landing page. With this in mind, I am unable to successfully pinpoint the product and/or company that you want to advertise. This will also be frustrating to people browsing our directory and want to view your company and can find nothing there. This helps keep the WebProNews eBusiness Directory filled with quality site listings.
• No Shortened URLs – There have been several URLs submitted lately that have been shortened with a random URL generator, such as TinyURL.com or Bit.Ly that redirects the person viewing the website to a longer URL. From an SEO standpoint, this will not help the visiblity of your website in search engines and directories because of the hidden and permanent redirect; therefore, I am unable to accept these URLs. These types of URLs also do not look attractive in directory listings because the URL does not fully describe the company or the product advertised.
• Meta Description Tags – A while back, I mentioned the use of meta tags prior to the submission of your site to our directory. This helps me compile the description of your listing to help better describe your site within our directory.

If you have any questions regarding your directory listing, please feel free to contact me via our directory’s contact form, or if you have account on the iEntry Directory Portal Forum, I can be contacted there as well.

Happy Submitting!

This past week, Chris Crum, the previous directory editor of the WebProNews eBusiness Directory, wrote an article on WebProNews on how web-video giant YouTube is moving up to the next level and is offering new tiers to the site dedicated to television shows and movies. This lets competition emerge with the well-known, full-length movie site Hulu.com which has specialized in this area for a long time. You can read the full-length article of this story here.

The reason why I mention this is because I would bring your attention to the WebProNews eBusiness Directory’s Video Sharing Sites subcategory (found here) under the Social Media category. This category is dedicated to listing sites such as YouTube.com and Hulu.com.

If you are the owner of a video-sharing site and would like to have it indexed within our directory listings, please feel free to use our quick-and-easy submission form. All you have to do is to provide the URL of the video-sharing site that you would like listed with us, along with your e-mail address for notification, and your video-sharing site will be be submitted for pending inclusion into our directory listings.

Happy Surfing!