Directory Submissions is generally not considered as a great link building technique by most SEO’s. They get written off as low quality spam links, so many internet marketers simply ignore them or only submit to the very top directories like DMOZ 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.
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 while evaluating a directory submission:
- 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 spammy 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 – You should stay away from these sites
One thing that people refer 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. People talk about directories and say stuff like “it’s a free/easy PR 6 link”. It is likely a PR 0 link as 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
The purpose of directory submissions is to gain keyword anchored links, not to generate traffic. Our focus is getting anchored links. There is a very small chance you will get 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. For example, you’re targeting a keyword – Hostgator review, following are a few variations you should use
- Hostgator Review
- Review of Hostgator
- Hostgator Webhosting Reviewed
- Review of Hostgator WebHosting
It is important to have variation in all your link building methods. The more natural it appears, the more success you will have.
Does Directory Submission Work?
Yes. Of course, these are not the best links, but they should be one part of your link building. It’s great to diversify your link building strategies and this is a great method to do so. You need to get links from as many different places as possible.
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?
The first is Directory Submitter. I’ve tried the free version and not too aware about the paid 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. You can also check out the below to help you get started
Conclusion
Directory Submissions 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.
Do let us know your thoughts on Directory Submissions as a Link Building Strategy
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- will directory submissions to sub pages raise your homepage page rank ?
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