Web Directories Backlink Power!
The pioneer of the web directory would have to be dmoz. The big benifit of Dmoz is that it is an open source link directory Meaning it is and was free to submit to. Getting indexed in Dmoz is basically impossible but it is worth a shot.
If you are lucky enough to get in you can expect to see some pretty decent traffic from them. It’s not unheard of for webmasters to purchase domain names just because they are indexed in Dmoz.
Internet link directories are websites that have a sorted list of websites by specific categories. They are comprehensive guides that help Internet users find the best and most relevant information.
The categories in a directory are divided into subcategories for specific information. In the category of directories you will find the subcategories for deep links, paid, niche, free and general. Each of these subcategories would be divided further into sites providing more specific topics.
Link directories are tools for improving search engine ranking. Link directories can be used to help a webmaster build one way backlinks. This is just one use a link directory to help build a websites link popularity.
Some link directories are general, containing links about a broad range of topics. The other directories will focus on a specific niche. It is recommended to submit to as many link directories as possible to get the best exposure for your web site.
Having your link placed in a general directory is fine but try to find one that hits on your specific topic. If you have a website about cats you will see a better return on your investment traffic wise if you can find a cat directory.
Link directories are different from search engines in that they are based on submissions and are categorized or edited by humans. Just about all search engines will use website bots to index and add your website to their engine.
Web directories are very easy to build and require minimal maintaince. They are much more simple than developing search engines. Directories are far easier to develop than a search engine. All of these factors are what make link directories so popular today.
There are several different ways to submit to directories. Some require registration a member or editor before adding a link. Some will let you submit a free link but it can take a long time for you listing to show up. The fastest way to get listed is to pay for your inclusion.
While getting your site listed in a popular link directory may cost money, it is well worth it. Another benifit of paying to be indexed is that you will see traffic to you website much faster.
You want to submit your website to the most popular directories to get the best bang for you buck. Having your site included in such a directory would give it the benefit of being listed as a quality site, as well as ensure high rankings.
Thery are several other ways to build traffic to you website but as you can see directories are very powerfull. It opens your website up to a much broader audience. Once your website is gaining large amounts of traffic, you can earn more money through advertising and sales.
http://www.danielmillions.com
Daniel Millions
Many Webmasters Are Using Directories For One Way Links
Most website owners do not take into consideration on how their website is designed. When we talk about design we are not talking about the graphics or the colors you use but we are talking about how your site is optimized. Your goal is to increase the targeted traffic to your site.
When listing your website, make sure you list it with a high quality directory that has a good record and quality sites; this will help with rankings and traffic. A few good quality links will draw the perfect customers for your business. Links in directories are free, paid, or free but need a reciprocal link. Links are provided on pages with similar or relevant content. When looking at directories make sure the link can be followed, if the link is a rel=”nofollow” don’t waste your time.
One of the most important reasons why submitting to directories is very important is because they are human edited, and search engines will look to these directories to confirm the value of sites in their search engine results. Directories will always be around but just like everything else on the internet they will need to adapt and keep up with changes and offer other services. Directory submission is a well established and often overlooked search engine optimization strategy.
You should keep your title within the following limits and that should be around 60 characters. Use your real site title. Remember to include a benefit in the title to compel your readers to read the rest. The more targeted your title is, the more qualified web visitors will visit your site. If you’re official website title is Tech Law, then that is the title to submit. Your title is usually displayed in search engine results.
Many sites that are submitted to directories are not accepted because the description does not conform to the rules of the site. When writing the description it is not supposed to sound like you are advertising your site it will need to be written in the third person and do not include superlatives or any type of excessive marketing. Description should be written in third person. Make sure your (USP) unique selling proposition is included in your site’s description. Your description should be unique even though it resembles description style of other web sites in your targeted directory. One way to get help for an accurate description is to ask friends to review your site. The description is the most difficult item to define correctly.
The other important factors in directory submission are making sure you use the correct title, keywords, and descriptions in the right category. Remember, that just any directory submission is not going to get you the traffic you want it takes time and patients.
RSS directory submission provides immediate link popularity. Some of the free directories are not being listed well by Google and other standard search engines. Paid directories have a competitive edge because the free directories sometimes looks like spam to the search engines, this is because the site is not optimized. Each listing carries a brief summary of the content contained within. By getting accepted it means your site meets the directories guidelines and is a quality site. Directories will typically not accept extensions.
David Marc Fishman helps webmasters with a link directory and web directory to establish one way links at http://www.vwutt.com and http://www.zsozi.com.
SEO of Your Free Article Directory
Do you operate your own article directory? If so, you may benefit from some specific knowledge about better optimizing your directory for the search engines. Almost all article directories have the same components: database (MySQL or similar), backend software (ArticleMS, Article Dashboard, or something similar) and customizable templates for different pages of the site.
The dynamic nature of the directory allows consistent search engine optimization with little effort. If you have basic programming knowledge of php or a similar language, you can likely make these changes yourself. If you don’t feel comfortable with this, you can try visiting forms for whatever software you are using or you can hire a programmer to do the modifications for you. Either way, it’s worth it.
One of the easiest and most important things you need to address is the meta tags in your template headers. I will try to keep this tutorial general so that you can get a basic understanding of the modifications. Because there are a number of different programming/database/content management systems out there, I can’t go into a great amount of detail. However, I would just like to point you in the right direction.
Back to the meta tags. You should have different templates for articles, members, article submission, etc. Within the html headers in templates you should have variables for “title”, “keywords”, “content” and “description”. Do not leave these static. Regardless of which CMS configuration you have, it shouldn’t be too difficult to define global variables based on some of the fields in your database.
The meta tags in the article page template are the most important. Within the header you can set your “title” meta tag to be the title of your article plus your domain name at the end. Set the “keywords” meta tag to be the keywords that the author has entered when submitting the article. The “description” tag could be set as the article summary, and so on. You get the picture.
It sounds basic, but believe me, there are many directory owners that have neglected this simple modification. If you leave all of the meta tags static, you are neglecting the awesome power of the dynamic CMS. Using variables in the meta tags allows you to give every article a unique page within the search results. It will have its own unique title and description and it will be more easily found since the keywords match the actual article. This also comes in handy for creating unique pages that can be added to social bookmarking sites such as Digg and Del.icio.us.
As you are no doubt aware, backlinks to your directory greatly influence your pages’ ranking in the search engine results. The greater the number of links from quality sites with similar content, the greater the perceived importance of your pages. However, it you operate a general article directory, as I do, then you have a vast number of categories for different topics. Using article or blog marketing, you can “deep link” directly to your article directory category pages (eg. www.yourdomain.com/business.php)
One final way to optimize your free article directory for search engines is to submit your URL to as many directory directories as you can. Articlecritic, for example, lists more than 500 article directories, and it has a high Google PageRank and good traffic. Listing in many of these directories is free. Over time, the links add up and improve your position in the SERPs (search engine results pages).
Whether you operate a directory of 500 or 50,000 pages, search engine optimization matters. Track how your pages are ranking within the search results for your targeted keywords. Remember that Google regularly changes its PageRank and SERP criteria. Optimization tricks that worked well three months ago, may not work as well now. It is up to you to ensure that visitors can find your site quickly using their favorite search engine.
To learn more about article marketing and article directories visit http://www.articopia.com/computers-and-internet/internet-marketing/
The Free Article Directory – What is it?
The radical changes in the structure of the internet and its adoption by people of all ages throughout the world have lead to new business models being adopted. As a webmaster, it is now possible to provide quality free information to the public while still earning a healthy income for your hard work. The free article directory is a perfect example of a new type of revenue model that has been proliferating across the web.
While there are a few notable exceptions (such as non-profit Wikipedia.org), most content-driven websites are able to earn money by displaying advertisements on their pages. These types of advertising are either keyword-based text ads (such as Google’s Adsense program) or paid sponsorships. Keyword-based text ads allow targeted ads to be delivered to the visitor based on the content of the page. Paid sponsorships are where the webmaster receives a fee for linking to an external website. A free article directory provides a wealth of information at no charge to the visitor.
Of course, not all article directory webmasters are completely altruistic. If the directory is popular and publishes current, well written, informative articles, it can provide the webmaster with a handsome income solely from advertising. Now I have come across dozens of free article directories that exist solely to display ads. The pages on these sites are littered with advertisements, making the pages a complete eyesore. These directories typically don’t receive high traffic because visitors find it hard to actually read the articles.
The article directories that do last are the ones that have successfully integrated the ads into an efficient and eye-pleasing layout. These directories have loyal followers and typically rank better in the search engine ranking pages. It is this type of article directory that I wish to discuss – the visitor-oriented, free article directory.
You may be just a curious websurfer wondering what the purpose of an article directory is. As I have mentioned previously, it is a directory that provides content on a variety of topics of interest to the visitor. There are general directories with dozens or hundreds of different categories. There are also niche directories targeted at a certain small segment (such as health related article directories).
Authors write on a topic relating to the theme of their own website in order to establish themselves as experts in a given field and to obtain important links to their website from the article directory. The author generally submits his/her article manually to a few directories or uses an automated submission service to submit to hundreds of article directories. If the article is approved by the article directory, it provides a targeted low-cost form of advertising for the author.
For those who are looking for an inexpensive way to get your feet wet in web marketing, this could be an attractive option. I have built dozens of websites, and article directories are among the easiest to manage and promote. You can obtain quality directory software for free (ArticleMS and Article Dashboard are the two most popular). They have excellent content management systems and can host thousands of articles with no problem.
Once you have the backend in place, you can customize the free skins that are available. Then you need to promote, promote, promote. Trade links with other related websites and directories, and write a few articles yourself. Play with different advertising methods on your pages. Because these sites are dynamic, it is usually possible to cut and paste a single snippet of code in order to place an ad on every page of your site.
A free article directory proves that it is possible to provide a quality free service, and still be rewarded for your efforts. Hopefully we’ll see more and more online businesses turning to this type of revenue model.
The author is the developer and operator of Articopia.com – Article Directory. Submit your article to our free article directory at http://www.articopia.com
Directory Marketing is Still Alive in 2007
To see why Directory Marketing is still alive in 2007, let’s take a look back at 2006.
A number of major changes in the linking model and the search algorithms were changed at Google to combat rampant link spam and create higher quality results. Similar efforts are underway at the other two major search engines: Yahoo and MSN. This is because of the highly competitive nature of search engine results and the associated quality that brings users back again and again.
The first of those changes was to penalize sites that participated in linking systems/networks. Most of these linking systems were very easy to identify and it really was just a matter of time before they were added to the algorithms. Not only that, many were not very well built in the first place and were easily manipulated by members to not pass page rank back to participating sites.
The next change was the seemingly reduced benefit of reciprocal linking and purchased text links. Both of these links are being discovered in greater quantities every day and once discovered are given very little to no link benefit in the algorithms. Obviously, reciprocal links are easy to discover and therefore easy to disregard. 3-way links have also been discovered in increasing numbers during 2006 and will continue to be an emphasis for the search engines to find patterns of abuse. Purchased links, of course, are quite a bit harder to discover and are really only discovered from certain linking systems where the links were centrally controlled by the link broker who was selling the links. “Hand edited” purchased links may still work but only if coming from sites with similar context which leads to the next item from 2006.
During 2006, more emphasis was put on the context of the link to your site. If your site is selling tires and you get a link from a site selling potpourri then the link will be given very little weight and really isn’t worth your effort. However, if you get a link from a site selling car batteries then that link will be given better weight because of the close proximity of the context – Auto parts. And of course the best weight given would be from another site selling or talking about Tires.
So, it’s 2007 and we’re looking for ways to continue marketing our sites and increasing our search engine rankings. Well, the answer has been with us for quite a while and will continue to be with us for 2007 and probably longer. Drum roll please…Directory Marketing. Directory marketing is simply submitting your site for inclusion into web directories in categories that match the context of our site.
What are the benefits of Directory Marketing? You receive 1-way links back to your site on a page that has the context that matches your site as close as possible. Many of the directories are considered “Authority” sites because they are hand editing so spam is not allowed. If you think about the benefits stated for Web 2.0 then directories fit right in because they are a human vote for your site. Another benefit is “natural” search engine discovery. The search engines visit most directories daily and will pick up new site links and visit your site quickly and add you to the index – usually within about a week.
Directory Marketing recommendations:
1. Submit to free directories – Paid directories have benefit but I’d start with the free ones.
2. Do not return a reciprocal link unless it makes sense for the context of your site.
3. Be aware that automated directories may not be given as much link weight.
4. Be patient – don’t use automated submission software to get thousands of submissions overnight (considered spam by both the search engines and the directories.
5. Use software (not automated) to help submit to directories – mostly helps in tracking and navigating to the hundreds of directories.
6. Rotate your Titles, Descriptions, & Keywords to keep your links different but yet similar. Natural linking appears random so use as many combinations as possible!
Anthony Stai is a proud contributing author and writes articles on several internet marketing related topics including directory marketing. You can see more of Anthony’s articles and personally created software on his web site at http://www.directorysitesubmitter.com.