Tips for vertical search engine

[AndyOwl]

I have a search directory dedicated to the training industry - has anyone any tips on how to make this widely known? I've had some success with previous sites, and know about DMOZ, Yahoo submissions and SEO, but I think I'm missing something on specialist search engine techniques. Thanks in advance.

[farees]

but I think I'm missing something on specialist search engine techniques.
I would do the following

Scour through the school directories on eLearners.com, ClassesUSA and similar categories on DMOZ and Yahoo

Contact each one of their webmasters to get a free listing on your site (at this time I'm assuming you already have a decent media kit explaining the benefits of getting a listing on your directory)

For a free listing they have to give you a link back

I suppose you already have a decent site search feature on your website (not the one provided by Google) Look up Pico Search

I don't know how big is your company but doing optimized press releases at least once a month should help in in-coming links and traffic

Be cautious when you buy in-coming links

Consider blogging if you are an expert in Training Industry, this is a good way to build in-coming links specially if other bloggers and journalists link to your blog. Hey if you are good at it you can start with Google’s AdSense program to generate some extra revenue.

Consider giving out some kind of reward to “top/best etc vendor” basically its an award logo with text a link back to your site (this can help significantly specially if webmasters don’t want to give you an in-coming link). Small website operators/vendors would love to get a third party backing.

More later..

- Farees

[AndyOwl]

Many thanks.

Media kits and press releases are the way I'm thinking too. We've done reciprocal linking in various forms for another site, but we want to keep this site clean (who wants a specialist search engine with reciprocal links pages).

For what it's worth, my tips on reciprocal links are:

- make sure they are relevant (I have this hunch that irrelevant links dilute your site message on your key search terms)
- make sure the sites are good (again, I have this hunch that a few good links are better than lots of mediocre ones)
- consider licensing the Google API (it's free) and writing software to trawl through Google for your key search terms to find relevant sites

I've never done a blog, and can't see what I'd put into it to attract any traffic, and equally I see the sense of the awards scheme but feel it would be hard to get to work in practice.

The basic problem is that by its nature you can't fill a search engine home page with key search words, so it's very difficult acquiring traffic.

Thanks again - great tips.