I’m going to start off our link building discussion with an old school method, because I think it represents what it takes to do well in SEO. That is: no gimmicks, no tricks, just work. (of course, we’ll get into sneaky methods, but there is not some great secret I’m holding on to)
You see people discounting directory submissions all the time. They get written off as low quality spam links, so many internet marketers simply ignore them or only submit to the very top directories. Of course, many directories lack the authority sites like DMOZ carry or paid directories like Yahoo, but success can be found in directory submissions. These types of links are not sufficient to dominate highly competitive terms, but help you gain one way anchored links to your small niche blogs that target long tail phrases.
Important point: Do not allow people to tell you what does and doesn’t work. Test it on your niches and see what result you get. So many make money bloggers rant about their view of SEO, but never test to see how it works. In my experience, I’ve had success with directories.
Evaluating Directories
You should evaluate directories for the link value they provide. There are various factors that can come into play here, but basically you want to get the best directories possible. Factors to consider may be: homepage pagerank, pagerank of sub pages, depth of your listing, number of indexed pages, and if it is being used as a link farm for many spam-ish niche sites. With bad directories, you’ll notice that only a few pages have PR and the PageRank does not spread well across the site. This may result in many of the listing pages not getting indexed. You may also notice several footer links out to gambling, porn, and prescription sites. This places this site in a bad neighborhood.
One thing I hate seeing is people referring to a link by the PR of the homepage. Yes, evaluating the homepage PR is a factor in determining the directory’s quality, but you are not getting a link from the home page. I see people talk about directories and say stuff like “it’s a free/easy PR 6 link”. No it is not. It is likely a PR 0 link! PR is assigned per PAGE. The power of the link will be based on the PR of the linking page, not the home page.
Directory Submission Best Practices
First lets make this clear. The purpose of directory submissions is to gain keyword anchored links, not to generate traffic via clicks. Our focus is getting anchored links. There is a very small chance you will get click traffic from these links, unless it is one of the huge popular directories.
The biggest key to success is varying your submission information. Most important, vary your anchor text. It is good to vary your description and keywords, but it is a must that you vary your anchor text, which will make the links look more natural. This is simple to do. For example, here are a few variations I might use (notice how they all include my keyword)
- Nashville SEO
- Nashville SEO Zombie
- SEO Zombie
- SEO
- SEO Blog
- Learn SEO
- SEO Lessons
- SEO Guide
- Wordpress SEO
- SEO Design
- SEO Consultant
- SEO Consulting
- SEO Services
- SEO Tips
It is important to have variation in all your link building methods. The more natural it appears, the more success you will have. You do not want to get flagged for Google bombing.
One last time: VARY YOUR ANCHOR TEXT
Do Directory Submission Work?
Yes. Of course, these are not the best links, but they should be one part of your link building. I’m a huge supporter of diversity. You need to get links from as many different places as possible. Submissions can be a time consuming task and very boring, but nobody said this wouldn’t be work.
Directory submission can really help you increase the number of anchored links to your site, which will solidify your rankings with your long tail niche sites.
How To Find Directories?
I’m not going to give you a list of the best directories, because honestly I don’t want to keep up with maintaining a list. There are several people on the internet that do this already. Below are two free lists that include directories that can be used to gain links from.
There are also two paid / semi paid options I can suggest. I’m not pushing products here, but these are tools and resources I have used. The first is Directory Submitter. I will be 100% honest. I don’t try to cheat you guys here. I have never purchased the paid version, so I cannot give a first hand review of the paid version. I have however used the free version. It does have a nice set of directories you can submit to and it semi automates the process by auto filling in the forms. I do use the free tool, but use it In combination with other directory lists. If you’re promoting a legit site, you might consider getting an SEOMoz Premium membership. They have a nice list of high authority unconventional directories. I am a PRO member at SEO Moz, so I am just sharing my experience. Not trying to push it, but it is worth checking out.
Free Directory Lists
Conclusion
Directory Submissions are boring and tiring work. They are not the best links either. They are one way anchored links from new link sources though. If you’re not seeing the success you’d like, consider submitting to directories. I know you might have expected more from me for my first “link building” post, but I thought this was a great way to start. The truth about link building is that there is no magic secret. It’s just creativity and hard work. Get out there and get your site some anchored links.
Related Posts:
How To Get Links With Article Marketing
Should You Submit Articles?
Finding the Best Link Directories
Find Dofollow Blogs
Link Exchanges That Work
{ 9 comments }
I am so glad you brought this up and I have just written a similar post to this, which was inspired by a blog post I read from someone who was so arrogantly raging about how directories are a waste of time and are for dummies, I for one, know through experience that this is just NOT true and in fact, I did a little test of my own, I have two sites, I used the same link building methods for both, the usual stuff, EXCEPT for site 2 I did NOT submit to directories, and guess what? This last PR update, site 1 went from PR0 to PR2 and the other PR0 to PR1! So I totally agree, test things and don’t listen to the hype, directories should remain a part of our link building strategies.
Thanks Justin,
JR
Yeah, I think people always want a black or white answer. Are directories Good or Bad?
Well, honestly neither. They are low quality links. Many of them are “spammy”. They aren’t the “best” links.
But, that doesn’t mean that shouldn’t be “part” of a site’s overall link profile.
I don’t mean to say that 500 directory listings is the way to go, but as long as they are only a part of your link building campaign, I haven’t seen it hurt my sites.
It seems to come down to what percentage of your links come from directories. If I went to some huge site like SEOMoz / SEO Book / ShoeMoney and performed negative SEO by submitting them to 500 spam directories. I doubt it’d have much of a negative impact, because it is such a low percentage of their link authority.
Many people will launch a thin BANS site and get nothing but directories, articles, and BMD links. In that case, there is a big chance Google will slap the site, because the entire link profile is self generated (from spammy directories and social sites)
Directories, articles, BMD….what other kinds of links are there for a BANS site? I guess you can make some comments but a few blog owners won’t accept them from a BANS site.
You can go for link exchanges. Build partnerships with other related BANS or related blogs.
You can attach a blog to the BANS site, which opens up different methods of link building.
Add articles to your BANS stores that are related to your product. “How to X”, “History of X”, “Top 10 X”, “Help Selecting X”.
That way, when you submit your sites to dofollow social sites, it appears more like legit linkbait, than an ad heavy affiliate spam link.
Build supporting sites. I’m not promoting a link farm, but you could create a simple blogger blog with real legit content. As long as this separate site provides a purpose (other than a link source), it isn’t really a “farm”. Build links to it and use it to promote (and link build) your store.
Get more creative in your link sources. Find forums related to your item. Sign up, put link in profile, put in signature if possible. Make a few posts.
Ask a friend to send you a legit contextual link from a related site.
Back track the links of your competition and try to get those links.
Find your competition’s non “free for all” links, such as links and blog posts. Be a link ninja and try to talk that webmaster into either replacing the link with yours or linking to you in addition.
You can improve the design, so it looks like a legit store. Then you might be able to leverage a few real contextual links.
I have only used paid directories. And to be honest, am not sure whether they helped much. I used yahoo, botw, and joe ant.
I actually have never invested the $$ yet for a paid listings. Mainly because I didn’t feel like it was needed. Once this site grows, I will invest in a Yahoo and BOTW listing.
I purchased the paid version of Directory Submitter when they where advertising that it had 600 or so directories. Well, after all the downloading and emails back and forth, they said that it now only had 370 or so directories. Can you say ClickBank refund?
The paid version (for the time I had it) was exactly the same as the free version with just more directories.
Thanks for the insight Justin
If backlinks from directories are not the best, would you say that backlinks from Article Marketer are the same as well? Coz at the moment, my link building strategy for my niche sites is largely depending on backlinks from Article Marketer.
I know I’m trolling the archives here. But I wonder why, when so many are saying to attach a blog to your BANS site, why more don’t go all the way and say that an eBay affiliate blog would do better?
Or X Site Pro 2 is a big seller right now. Why not combine “static” html sites with the PHPbay API version? Then you can build content sites which are filled with affiliate links to your heart’s content?
Plus, going this route means that you have a content rich site that doesn’t have any of the “blog identifiers” or footprints, if you will. Some believe that if Google identifies the site platform as a blogging one, it puts expectations of how it will be maintained on the site. So avoiding that, if you have no intentions of posting new content on even a semi-regular basis, could be a great idea.
What do you think?
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