Axon Directory

As set forth earlier this month, all fifteen main category descriptions are completed with a couple of days to spare before September. Some descriptions are admittedly a bit shorter than others, but over time they will be updated to have more content.

Entrecard?

I have submitted this blog into Entrecard, but with their recent handovers and other issues, they haven’t gotten around to approving this blog yet. It has been almost a month that I’ve given them free advertising with nothing in return.

Other Promotion

I will begin submitting Axon Directory to other directories in the near future.

Some goals are being laid out for the month of August with respect to Axon Directory’s main categories, to push them further into development and becoming more complete.

To be specific, each of the fifteen main categories are to have a brief category description that is a paragraph or two long. These will be included directly below the breadcrumb navigation, and above the subcategory listings. This textual content is also to be unique. Hopefully these goals will be met come September.

As a design side-note, the number of links and subcategories beside the main category names on the homepage have been removed.

Status of Indexing

Currently, over 350 out of the 500 URLs included in the sitemap that was submitted to GWT are indexed.

An XML sitemap has been created for AxonDirectory.com using a free sitemap generator found online. The entire process took over five minutes due to the sheer number of links and sub-directories within AD. We have then submitted this sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools so that they have a better idea of all the sections within the Axon Web Directory.

Thus far, only about 100 of the 500 submitted URLs have been indexed. It’s just a matter of time until the rest are included, as the status of the sitemap is good with no errors or warnings.

The tools that are available through Webmaster Tools will also come in handy in analyzing the progress of the directory as time goes on. Top search queries, keywords, and links to your site are worth taking a look at every now and then, as are the crawling statistics and errors.

We quickly put together a 125×125 square button for promotional purposes. It’s a bit rough, so don’t be surprised if an improved version comes out soon.

If anyone wishes to put this image up on their website, you can use the image here:

http://www.axondirectory.com/images/square-button.png

You can also leave a comment on this post with a link to your website.

Three platforms for getting free traffic have been added to our promotion arsenal. These are notorious for getting very low-quality traffic, but it is free nonetheless, and we have more than enough bandwidth thanks to our friends at Pipe B Web Hosting. Uptime has been phenomenal on our Pipe 10 plan, which only costs $2 per month with unlimited add-on domains, parked domains, and subdomains.

This free traffic will help to drive awareness of Axon Directory. Further efforts will be made in this attempt as well, such as the chronicling of the life of our web directory through this blog. Down the road, a more diverse range of topics will be covered too, so keep an eye out for those.

The template and layout for the directory have been finalized. Axon Directory will be rocking a clean white and red template, with the main pages (Add Site, Latest Sites, Top Sites, and Contact) listed across the top.

The layout consists of a main content area, and a sidebar will be flanking it to the right. A “Latest News” section tops the right sidebar, with “About Us” and “Additional Resources” boxes underneath. We foresee that the Latest News content will replaced, or enhanced, with a feed from this very blog.

The location of category descriptions were previously directly under the directory name (Axon Directory) at the top, but they are now lower, directly underneath the breadcrumb navigation.

Additional changes to the template / layout may occur in the future, but the major decisions have been made for now. Have a look and let us know what you think about Axon Directory’s look so far.

Welcome to the blog of Axon Directory. This is our first post, and we have opted to edit it and not delete it.

Now, on to blogging!