Well, it's been days since I last logged any changes to my portal. That's OK, because everything is functional. I haven't been completely inactive - I've found some relevant links and spidered them in. Before we go any further in looking at the rest of the portal goodies, let's talk briefly about why it's important to add links on your own.

In an ideal world, people would hear about your portal and be just as anxious to list their site in it as they are to list in Yahoo! It's not going to happen that way, my friend, unless you make it happen. Picture this:

Person finds your portal while hopping around the web. Person is excited! Then person begins clicking into your directory and finds - nothing! Is person motivated to add his or her own site. Not really. Does person stick around to see what else you've got going on? Probably not. I don't know about you, but the biggest reason I use the "Back" button on my browser is to leave a page or site that looks dead.

Moral: if your portal looks like a ghost town, no one is going to want to move in. To ensure success, you've got to build a directory that people will find useful. Then, and only, then are they going to tell other people about it or bookmark it.

So how do you go about building your directory? Well, here's one piece of advice: do NOT copy lock, stock and barrel the listings over at Yahoo or the ODP or any other directory. There are legalities here that we shouldn't have to discuss, right? Your goal is to be better anyway, isn't it? Let me recommend that you download a great piece of free software called Copernic. You'll be able to do searches across multiple engines, compile the results to eliminate duplication, and validate the results to get rid of dead links. Oh, and did I mention it's completely FREE! There is a pro version, but the free version is nag-free and powerful. http://www.copernic.com

Set a goal to add at least 10 links a day to your directory. Copernic will help you find the URLs. Then just spider them in and add them to your directory. You're building something for your visitors to see when they arrive at your portal, and you'll always have something on the What's New page so that it's clear that your portal is a live, active, growing place. Now people are going to want to submit their sites to you, advertisers are going to want to advertise with you, and visitors are going to want to tell their friends about your site. So what are you waiting for? Get cracking!.

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