Backlinks and Directories

Backlinks from web directories is usually a good place to start promoting your business opposed to submitting articles to ezine sites for one very simple reason. In order to have a back link promoted by an ezine you have to write an article and then that article needs to be accepted before being published. While submitting to ezine sites with high rankings within the major search engines will greatly help your ranking, it takes time and effort. Don't get me wrong, you want and need to create these back links but what you want to do is start submitting your site to directories first.

No doubt you have seen advertisements by differing websites offering thousands of links to differing pages. Even thought this may seem like a good idea at first you must keep in mind that when it comes to directories its good practice to pick quality of quantity. A lot of new business owners get caught into the trap of paying for a listing within a directory but not gaining any benefit from it. The worst part is that a lot of these directories don't even rank well within the search engines. The simple question here is; If a directory which wants you to pay to list your site can't rank well themselves, how are they going to help your site? Another good practice to undertake is to submit to directories which are targeted towards the market of your website. There’s no use submitting to a directory within automobiles if your website is about parachutes. Back links from topic related sites hold more weight than those from general web directories. This is also brings us to our next question as you will see this on nearly every directory you'll find.

Should I pay to submit to a directory or use free listings? The advantage of paying to submit your site to a well established directory opposed to a free listing is that your link website gets priority and will usually be added within a few days. Free links can take upto 6 months before they're listed within a directory IF successful. Another advantage is that your listing will normally appear at the top of the category listing you choose. Paying to have your site submitted within directories can vary in range with cost. Some can cost as low as $5 per to list your site, well others can cost considerably more. To submit to a directory like Yahoo can set you back a good $300 a year.

Once your site has been accepted by a directory, spiders (web bots) from search engines which crawl the internet, will find your link listed within the directory and begin to index your website. I firmly believe it's good practice to be picked up by search engines this way instead of submitting your link directory to them. If they find your site then you know first hand that your site is listed not only for major search engines to find but also people who use directories themselves to find services they require. This is where paying to have your site added to a directory can have significant advantage over listing to a free one. Web links from various directories help increase you inbound link count meaning how many external links there are to your website. To various degrees, Search engines will use this factor to establish the importance of a website and how it's ranked when people search for a particular keyword or phrase it has been optimized with.


Consider the below tips when submitting your website.

1. Ensure your website is ready for submission

Web directory managers are looking to accept good, high quality websites, and nothing else. Before you start submitting your website ensure it looks good, is free of adverts, is not under construction and does not have any spam. If your site looks unready or unprofessional, for any reason, it is likely to be rejected from a web directory.

2. Check the web directory rules or guidelines carefully

Popular web directories receive thousands of applications to review. Therefore, they develop rules and guidelines for your submission. These rules are put in place to ensure that the submission and approval process can flow as smoothly as possible, as well as to help the directory select only the sites that are, in fact, relevant.

3. Consider your submission website details carefully
When search engines count the number of links, or votes, to a website, they also consider factors regarding the link. The anchor text is of great importance. This suggests to the search engine the topic of the page. Web directories use the title field as the anchor text. Consider your title carefully, although some web directories only allow you to submit the site name in the title field, to prevent abuse of this field. Also important is the descr i ption field of your site, as search engines consider the text around the link also.

4. Select your category carefully

Select a category the best suits your site, as the text of other listings on the page will also help your link.
Consider this: if there are so many websites already in the travel category, that a second exists, the PageRank of the second page will be less than the first. Therefore you would want to get a link on the first page, and not the second. With a paid submission, your link will appear on the first page, with a free submission your website will appear at the end of the list. Submitting your website to a directory when it first appears, although it has low PageRank, can be beneficially in the long run as your link will appear early on the category pages.
Think creatively also. If your website is about holiday car rental, you may consider submitting to the rental, transport or travel categories.
I suspect the transport category will have less links than the travel category, and therefore a link there will be more valuable.
Web directory managers typically have thousands of websites to review, and websites submitted to inappropriate categories will almost certainly be rejected.

5. Vary your website submissions

Once you have written good details for your website, and submitted them to a number of websites, lets say 10, you should then change the website details, and then continue submitting to more web directories. Search engines like to see a variation in the details of a link, and the text around the link. Gaining 100 web directory links with identical details will not be as beneficial as 10 lots of 10 links with differing details.

Another good way to help promote your site is to have recipricol links with websites with similar themes as your own. Also another area to look at is blogging not only on your site but also on network websites like Myspace, Facebook or Perfspot. One of the hardest aspects of this technique is having enough articles to pass onto Ezines, Networks and of course your own site without running the risk of duplicate content.