The benefits of submitting to niche directories are:

In the previous posts, we discussed Local Channels, which are websites that target a particular location or region, hence the term ‘local’. When people see that your business is locally near them, they will more likely take a closer look and make a buying decision.
With “Niche” channels, we will now focus on websites that are targeted to a particular industry or topic; for example, a blog, directory or search engine that strictly shows information for electronics only. A niche channel is another area where you can find targeted prospects for your business. The ideal strategy to use is to combine local and niche channels together in your marketing.
So if you’re selling furniture in Texas, then you would want to target websites that are locally in Texas and are about furniture.
Here are different niche channels which you can utilize to market your business online.
Niche Directories
Niche directories are directories that only allow submissions from businesses that are related to the niche. For example, if your business sells classic cars, then you should submit your website to directories that specialize in classic cars only.
The benefits of submitting to niche directories are:
1. Search Engine Optimization
Major search engines such as Google and Yahoo rank the niche directories high for keywords related to the niche. Since the directories have a link to your website, the latter will rank high for the keywords also.
So if your business sells accessories for vintage classic cars and it appears in a classic car directory under the category Accessories, then you may rank higher compared to other businesses for the keywords “classic car” and “accessories”.
The number of related websites with links to your business website affects your ranking in the search engines. The more the merrier.
Your task is to find as many niche directories as possible, and submit your business website to them. A lot of these directories are free so the only cost is your time for the submission process.
There are some niche directories that accept payment to be listed in them. These directories normally have fewer listings because most business owners don’t want to pay. However, the quality of these paid niche directories are better than the free ones and normally rank well on the search engines.
If you’re considering paying for a listing in a niche directory, spend some time and look at the directory you’re considering. See if the Google™ Page Rank is high compared to the free Niche Directories. Page Rank is Google’s way to show that a website is an authority in its industry. A Page Rank of 4 or higher is good.
To check a website’s Page Rank, you can install the Google™ Toolbar at Alternatively, if you don’t like to install an extra toolbar on your browser, you can check a website’s page rank at
If the niche directory has a good page rank (i.e. 4 or higher), then you can also check to see if it gets many visitors.
For a rough estimate of how much traffic a website has on average, you can use the Alexa tool at Just type in the URL of the website and get an estimate of how much traffic the website receives.
Next you can do an online search for the niche directory and read about other people’s views. You will know a lot about a directory based on other people’s feedback in forums and blogs.
Based on the PageRank, traffic and other people’s comments, you can justify to see if it’s worth paying the money to be listed in that particular paid niche directory.
Here’s a list of niche directories:
Alternatively, you can use the search engine and type in <> directory e.g. camera If your customers want to find accessories or spare parts for their classic cars, then no doubt they would have spent a lot of time searching on the internet for information. It’s very likely that they would have visited a classic car directory during their search.
By listing your business website in the targeted categories of the directory, you are exposing your products and services to targeted buyers. Think about it.
People who visit a niche directory and have dug deeper within the categories, are there for one reason only. They have a need and they’re looking for a solution. They’re looking for businesses that specialize in what they want. Plus they want to buy.
When they see your business listed in a certain category, you have a chance of making a sale. It now depends on the decision of the buyer, whether to purchase from you or your competitors who are also listed in the same categories.
Their decision will depend upon whether your business is located near them, if you have a telephone number they can use to call someone, the prices of your products and services, and the professional way on how your business is described in the listing.
Niche directories are very important for listing your business websites. They can get you targeted visitors to your website and help you rank higher in the search engines for your keywords.
The best part is submitting your website to niche directories is cheap and free most of the time, an excellent way to market your business online in an affordable manner. Great for all budget ranges.

One of the things I most enjoy about working in digital marketing is that there are no such things as certainties, and something you knew for sure yesterday may turn out to be complete rubbish tomorrow. Sometimes this can be really scary - any book you buy on the subject will be out-of-date the moment it's printed so you can't even rely on the traditional pillars of wisdom - but it can also be incredibly exciting.

An idea you had in the shower one morning can become a major plank of your marketing strategy the next day. A throw-away suggestion at a conference can ricochet round the blogosphere and be the hottest topic of debate within hours.

But that’s all about theory, and the inconvenient truth about theory is that in practice it’s only ever theoretical! How on earth can a marketer hope to cope with these ever-shifting ideas where there seems to be nothing concrete you can hold on to from one day to the next? Just how do we evaluate every new possibility against the myriad which we’re already juggling? More to the point, how do we assess which things are going to change the world and which are going to fizzle out like a damp firework?

A breakthrough moment for me was when I finally realised that it's OK to experiment, and accepting that there are going to be things that don't work. For many marketers - indeed for many organisations - that’s such a fundamental change to the paradigm that they just can’t get their heads around it. Can it possibly be OK to gamble marketing budget knowing full well that the odds may not be that high? Should we push out that new piece of functionality into our software knowing that we might take it out again in a year because nobody needs it any more?

I believe the successful 21st-century enterprises will be the ones that are prepared to make this shift. I think there will be four key characteristics of these companies:

They will look at every new possibility - whether that be a new technology like Twitter, or a phenomenon like user-generated content - and consider if they can make use of it. They probably won’t jump on the bandwagon immediately, but they’ll want to be in the early adopter phase of the classic uptake model.


They won’t ever do something just for the sake of it. If the new tool or practice doesn’t fit with the brand, then they won’t do anything until it does.


They will evaluate everything carefully - not just in terms of ROI, but also in terms of how it’s fitting in with what everyone else is doing. You never want to be the one still wearing brown when everyone else has decided that blue is actually the new black...


Once something isn’t working they’ll drop it. This is, I think, the most crucial point. There’s no point carrying on with a particular technology or idea if the world has now left it behind (unless of course, there’s still an opportunity to use it distinctively).

Software tools such as Lyris HQ can really help with this. It’s now a case of simply hitting one button to add a link so recipients of your email marketing can post your message to Facebook or Twitter - and it’s then really easy to set up a segment in the Web analytics tool to see what sort of difference it’s making to the Web site. Marketers can now easily experiment. What happens, for example, if you use the new Twitter feed on the Lyris HQ dashboard to identify people who talk frequently about your product or service, and then use email marketing to send them advance information ahead of everyone else?

Making it up as we go along is hard, but I believe that in this brave new world where nothing is certain anymore, it’s our only hope. So let’s throw caution to the wind and see what happens!

US Outlines Plan to Regulate Carbon Gas Emissions

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has unveiled a strategy for cutting U.S. carbon gas emissions that emphasizes cooperation between the Obama administration and the U.S. Congress.

EPA chief Lisa Jackson outlined the plan Wednesday at a U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen.

She described her agency's decision this week to regulate carbon gas emissions in the United States as an attempt to boost ongoing U.S. congressional efforts dealing with global warming.

U.S. Senate debate is stalled on legislation imposing specific cuts on greenhouse gas emissions. But Jackson said the Obama administration is ready to work closely with lawmakers to pass comprehensive clean energy reforms lowering carbon emissions by more than 80 percent from current levels by mid-century.

The EPA ruled Monday that scientific evidence shows carbon emissions are a clear threat to Americans' health and should be regulated.

That decision gives the agency the power to regulate such emissions without Congressional approval.

The EPA decision was greeted warmly in Copenhagen, where delegates from 192 nations are seeking a deal to place caps on greenhouse gas emissions that many scientists say cause global warming.

Negotiators are struggling to balance the economic concerns of rich countries with those of developing economies. Poorer countries are demanding that industrialized economies bankroll the bulk of anti-pollution initiatives because such countries are believed to be responsible for the carbon gas linked to global warming.

More than 100 world leaders, including U.S. President Barack Obama, are expected to attend the Copenhagen conference next week.

UN Envoy: Climate Change Talks Moving Forward

Speaking in Copenhagen, Yvo de Boer, the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change Executive Secretary, said the draft showed that climate negotiations are moving forward.

"Negotiators are beginning to turn their attention to the bigger picture and the ultimate outcome of this conference," he said.

De Boer described the document as a 'framework', which still needs to be fleshed out.

The document leaves open the issue of how much cash will be needed to help developing countries adapt to climate change.

But European countries announced Friday they will contribute over $10 billion over the next three years.

AP

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown (File)

Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the European Union was committed to major emissions reductions.

"Our aim is through an ambitious deal that the European Union commit to reduce its emissions by 30 percent by 2020. The agreement must include a financial framework that is for the short-term, medium-term, and long-term," he said.

The draft text also leaves open the exact target for limiting temperature rise. Small Islands and some poor countries have called for temperature rise to be capped at 1.5 degrees Celsius - lower than the two degree figure endorsed by major developing economies in July.

But the draft does call on developed nations to cut green house gas emissions by at least 25 percent from 1990 levels by 2020 and by at least 50 percent by 2050. Greenhouse gases are the byproduct of fossil fuels, which scientists say are heating up the earth's atmosphere and bringing chaos to its climate system.

Scientist Stephan Harrison from Britain's University of Exeter says 50 percent-reduction targets are a good step, But he says, that reduction won't be enough to keep temperature rise below 2 degrees.

"People have said that 80 percent reduction is probably the minimum required, so 50 percent clearly wouldn't be enough," he said.

He says the United States needs to take the lead in curbing emissions.

"America has enormous influence -- it's enormously powerful politically, so what America decides to do will have absolute fantastic influence," he added.

The United States has so far refused to sign up for legally binding lower emissions targets.

Grace Akumu is climate change advisor to the Kenya government. Speaking from Copenhagen she said the US has to do more to match the European Union's commitment to limiting climate change.

"America also should join other developed countries who propose comparable emissions reductions targets and time frames," she said. "So that the EU does not feel boxed to the corner. Because now the European Union has been baring the burden alone and America -- the largest emitter -- has been on the side of the Kyoto protocol," she added.

AP

Police lines block a demonstration from advancing towards the center of Copenhagen, 11 Dec 2009

The conference in Copenhagen will continue until December 18. Early next week ministers will be arriving in Denmark's capital to join negotiations. Country leaders, including U.S. President Barack Obama, are expected at the end of the week.

The goal is to reach a global deal on tackling climate change, which will come into effect in 2013.

Challenges For Obama’s Afghan Strategy

Mr. Obama’s plan calls for the withdrawal of troops by the summer of 2011. Critics on the left want the troops out now, saying the war in Afghanistan has already lasted eight years. Others, especially Mr. Obama’s conservative opposition, question the wisdom of announcing a specific exit date.

Given follow-up testimony before the U.S. Congress last week by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, it has become clear that the president’s timeline for a drawdown is less a commitment than an aspiration.

Gates vowed the U.S. partnership with the Afghan government and other countries in the region would not be fleeting. “Our government will not again turn our back on this country or this region,” he said. “We will fight by your side until the Afghan forces are strong enough to secure that nation on their own.”

Reaction in Afghanistan

Afghan President Hamid Karzai weighed in on Mr. Obama’s plan, indicating it may be five years before his army and police are ready to take on insurgents – and 15 to 20 years before his government can afford to pay for its own security.

Beyond Mr. Karzai, Afghans are split in their opinions about the Obama withdrawal plan. “People who analyze the Afghan situation think the deadline is good because in those 18 months probably both the U.S. coalition forces and the Afghan government will work hard to train the Afghan armed forces,” says Afghan analyst Alam Payind. “It will put pressure on the Karzai government to implement reforms and reduce the corruption.” he added. Payind is director of the Middle East Studies Center at the Ohio State University.

On the other hand, Payind says Afghans who oppose the deadline argue that it will embolden the insurgents. Even more important, he says, is the weakness of the Karzai government. “And that doesn’t even address the issues of opium production and trafficking, which fuel and criminalize the economy, and in which some ministers are involved,” says Payind.

Fear of Repeating Past Mistakes

“President Obama’s announcement ignored the contribution of America’s previous lack of sustained involvement in Afghanistan,” says Roy Gutman. Foreign editor of the McClatchy newspaper chain, Gutman is also the author of How We Missed the Story: Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, and the Hijacking of Afghanistan.

“If you go back to the period of the Russian invasion, which was 30 years ago this month, the United States played a huge role funding and arming the Afghan resistance,” Gutman recalls. But he also notes after the Soviets were forced to leave Afghanistan in 1989, the United States lost interest in the country. That interest in the region would be renewed in the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks against New York and Washington.

Pakistan’s Key Role Then and Now

“Our success in Afghanistan is inextricably linked to our partnership with Pakistan,” President Obama told the American people last week. But while Pakistanis fault the United States for helping to create the instability the region faces today, opinion there is split on what the U.S. role should be.

“The strange and interesting fact is that both Pakistanis and Afghans have been complaining for the last several decades about America walking away from Afghanistan and Pakistan after the Soviets left in the 1980s,” says former Pakistani diplomat Akbar Ahmed. At the same time, Ahmed says “one finds a great deal of anti-Americanism among Pakistanis today.” Ahmed, who chairs the Islamic Studies department at the American University in Washington, says part of that anger is fueled by the U.S. drone attacks in the tribal regions of Pakistan. Those attacks have been blamed for the deaths of an estimated 500 to 600 innocent civilians.

So, Ahmed concludes, there is a Pakistani paradox. “While Pakistanis may not be particularly happy about so many Americans being involved on this side of the border, at the same time they don’t want America to just pack up and leave,” he explains.

The Limited Options

“The immense task America now faces in the region is greatly aggravated by Afghanistan’s weak central government,” Gutman says. The Afghan government of Hamid Karzai hasn’t helped its own cause in that respect. Perceived corruption within the government, and especially during the president’s re-election, didn’t win Mr. Karzai much respect within his own country or the international community.

But Gutman warns that circumventing the Afghan President by turning to regional leaders would carry a greater risk – making Afghanistan so decentralized that it could become ungovernable. Gutman’s prediction: “It’s not going to be over in 18 months.” Akbar Ahmed, Roy Gutman, and Alam Payind were interviewed by VOA’s Judith Latham on the 10 December edition of International Press Club.

Some 1.6 billion people lack access to electricity

LUTW

Dave Irvine-Halliday works one house at a time in Mexico to install LED lighting

In 1996 Canadian professor David Irvine-Halliday was on a work trip in Nepal when his return flight was canceled. It would be weeks before he could catch another flight home, but the delay gave him time to hike the Annapurna Circuit, a 14-day trek through the Himalayas. One day, wandering past a school he heard children singing. He looked in the window and wondered how, without light, the kids could study. Sadly, he realized, these conditions are common in poor countries. Some 1.6 billion people in the world have no access to electricity.

LUTW

LEDs can replace expensive and polluting kerosene lamps

People who aren't connected to the electric grid often get their light from kerosene, candles or burning wood. But, the products are expensive, produce only dim light and generate polluting fumes that cause health and environmental problems. Responding to the need for safe, clean and affordable lighting, Irvine-Halliday set to work on a solution.

LEDs turn out to be a bright idea

Back in his laboratory at the University of Calgary, Alberta, he experimented with light emitting diodes, technology he was familiar with as a professor of renewable energy. "I knew that they were virtually indestructible. They lasted for decades because they were putting them under the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, and they were going to be there for years and years and years working for 24 hours a day," he says.

Irvine-Halliday settled on a one watt bright white light, a Japanese product he discovered on the Internet. Startled by the intense beam he generated when he rigged the diode to his bike generator, he recalls saying to his partner, "Good God, a child could read by the light of a single diode."

CAUSE Canada

Girls in Sierra Leone read by the light of a single watt LED

In 2000, Irvine-Halliday returned to Nepal to put the system in homes. He first used pedal power, then turned to hydro and finally turned to solar power generation. The single watt solar LED package works, Irvine-Halliday told Capitol Hill staffers at a recent meeting in Washington, because it is affordable, clean and easy to set up and maintain. "The one-time cost of our system - which consists of a small solar panel, a little motorcycle-sized battery and a couple of LED lamps, is less than one hundred dollars," he says. He adds that's about the same as the cost of kerosene for a year.

Some 1.6 billion people lack access to electricity

LUTW

Dave Irvine-Halliday works one house at a time in Mexico to install LED lighting

In 1996 Canadian professor David Irvine-Halliday was on a work trip in Nepal when his return flight was canceled. It would be weeks before he could catch another flight home, but the delay gave him time to hike the Annapurna Circuit, a 14-day trek through the Himalayas. One day, wandering past a school he heard children singing. He looked in the window and wondered how, without light, the kids could study. Sadly, he realized, these conditions are common in poor countries. Some 1.6 billion people in the world have no access to electricity.

LUTW

LEDs can replace expensive and polluting kerosene lamps

People who aren't connected to the electric grid often get their light from kerosene, candles or burning wood. But, the products are expensive, produce only dim light and generate polluting fumes that cause health and environmental problems. Responding to the need for safe, clean and affordable lighting, Irvine-Halliday set to work on a solution.

LEDs turn out to be a bright idea

Back in his laboratory at the University of Calgary, Alberta, he experimented with light emitting diodes, technology he was familiar with as a professor of renewable energy. "I knew that they were virtually indestructible. They lasted for decades because they were putting them under the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, and they were going to be there for years and years and years working for 24 hours a day," he says.

Irvine-Halliday settled on a one watt bright white light, a Japanese product he discovered on the Internet. Startled by the intense beam he generated when he rigged the diode to his bike generator, he recalls saying to his partner, "Good God, a child could read by the light of a single diode."

CAUSE Canada

Girls in Sierra Leone read by the light of a single watt LED

In 2000, Irvine-Halliday returned to Nepal to put the system in homes. He first used pedal power, then turned to hydro and finally turned to solar power generation. The single watt solar LED package works, Irvine-Halliday told Capitol Hill staffers at a recent meeting in Washington, because it is affordable, clean and easy to set up and maintain. "The one-time cost of our system - which consists of a small solar panel, a little motorcycle-sized battery and a couple of LED lamps, is less than one hundred dollars," he says. He adds that's about the same as the cost of kerosene for a year.