Building BackLinks Tip 3: Directory Submission

SEO Optimization recommends you reading SEO Book, 331 ebook in PDF with useful search engine optimization tips and search engine marketing guide.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is mainly based on off site seo optimization and building backlinks from other trusted sites that have a relevant content to yours. But to see faster the effect of backlinks in the search engine result page(s) we need to have a well build on page seo optimization for our site or blog.

To continue with the series of building backlinks tip where i first wrote about building backlinks with freebies and than building backlinks participating to communities today I want to speak about another way of building backlinks that many of you might know but don’t give the necessary weight to, web directories.

Backlinks from Directories

Directories are built with the intentions to list quality websites and present them to the public. If we want to ask how useful are directories for visitors I would say not much, as I have never went to a web directory to look for a certain site. The web directories classify sites that are listed in categories to make it easier for users to find a website based on a category, this tho permitted to SEO experts to gain in a certain way backlinks from sites or pages relevant to the content of their site.

If you were not much into web directories most probably you would not know what was going behind the scenes and why were there so many web directories launched every day from webmasters, with the recent web directory penalization by Google in PageRank and drop in search engine page results the even those that did not knew much about web directories understood what was behind the scenes and why so many web directories. The web directories were no longer a resource for visitors to find useful sites, instead they were transformed into cash machines where you could get listed for a small one time fee.

Free Directory Submission

Even tho some directories require payment to get your site listed such as V7n Directory or BOTW Directory there are still thousands of directories where you can submit your website or blog for free and some that require a backlink.

In any case, submitting your site to web directories is time consuming (especially if you don’t have a list of web directories) but for a small fee you can hire a directory submission company or a individual. Some times hiring someone to do your job can be the best thing you had thought about or the worst night mare you have ever had. So make sure they provide you with testimonials list, contact them if you can and ask them questions.

The prices for directory submission individuals are as cheap as $10 for 100 PR3+ directory submissions (but note, the individuals guarantee SUBMISSION not as well as APPROVAL), the approval part depends on the directory owner and the quality of your website (the quality would be determined again by the directory owner or one of the staff).

If you are long on time than you could search for directories by your self or get a list of directories (just perform a query in one of the search engines) and start submitting your site on various directories (but let me remind you again, do your seo gradually). A big amount of backlinks will most probably make search engines suspect and place your site in question, just try to create back links to your site as naturally as possible you can, even 2-5 backlinks (or submissions in this case) a day would be great, 100 already would be suspicious.

Paid Directory Submission

If the web directories allow free submission because they want to build audience and a list of sites that have been submitted than the paid directories most probably already have the needed audience. Directories like V7N Directory, BOTW Directory, DMOZ or Yahoo’s Web Directory have already build the audience, the trust infront of user eyes and to get listed to some of those directories is a hard luck or it requires to wait for a longer period.

V7N Directory
The V7N Directory is the cheapest one of the 4 directories named above, to get listed in their index you need to pay one time only $49.95 fee. Even tho the directory of John Scott was not effected of the penalization in the SERPs the directory was heavily penalized in PageRank at this last PageRank update.

BOTW Directory
Best of The Web Directory is one of the oldest web directories on Internet, it is operating since 1994 actively and with success. The submission price to this web directory varies from the category, the flexible pricing option permit you to submit your site to their index for $79.95 yearly fee or $239.95 one time free. From what it results BOTW did not received any kind of penalization, neither on SERPs for their branding name neither on PageRank (their current homepage PR is of 7). And if you would want to sponsor one of the categories that most likely matches your niche of site than you can grab this free advertising opportunity and get exposed for $60 days for free, if the results do not satisfy you you can cancel the sponsorship any time or renew it for $49.95 monthly fee.

DMOZ Directory
DMOZ is one of the most trusted directories by Google search engine and is almost the most discussed directory among webmasters due to the latest corruption news (this last case is not the only one). Submitting your site to DMOZ is totally free, but the time you need to wait from the submission to the inclusion is so long that you will actually forget that you had requested a submission to that directory. I would not like to enter in the discussion of corruption or no on this post so I will leave it for another post.

Yahoo Directory
The Yahoo’s Web Directory is one of the most reputable among business owners and the most used for those that want to expose their business online. The fee to get listed to the Y! Directory is of $299 and nonrefundable fee even if your site does not meet the requirements and it won’t be listed. From webmaster communities such as digitalpoint webmasters thoughts in regard of Y! Web Directory are mixed, many say that it has been very successful and they have seen good results in profits and as well in SERPs and some others disgrace the directory for different reasons (the nonrefundable fee, the needed time for the submission etc).

Effectiveness

You might be asking the same question I was asking myself in regard of directory submissions for SEO purpose the first I heard of it. And you are right to be skeptical about it since the results varies from directories to directories. Trial and error is your best book to learn things, what might work for me it might not work for you. I will prepare another post about how to submit your website to web directories and to leave no suspect.

Thank you for reading SEO Optimization, don’t forget to subscribe to my RSS feed.

Sharing is caring!