Link Building
Posted by Wesley LeFebvre on November 6, 2009
While free directory listings typically don’t carry much link value, many of them do offer ways for you to optimize your ranking within them. Higher rankings usually means more visitors and less hops from the home page; theoretically equaling more link-juice, 99% of the time.
Unfortunately, most link-building companies still tout quantity of links being more important than quality of link source i.e., linking page. In my opinion, this is because it is a lot easier to convince a client that you have been hard at work building links for them when you can show hundreds of low-quality links attained, rather than just 5 high-quality ones. I mean lets face it, the client usually can’t tell the difference. To them 500 looks better than 5. Link profiles are instantaneous, and provide instant gratification; whereas ranking increases and proof of ROI take time.
Many of the websites I have worked on link-building for have thousands of less links than their competitors, and yet still rank higher.
So when you’re building links be sure to always make the most out of the links you acquire, free or not. Be sure to check for ways to optimize your rankings and increase your position on the website’s categories and lists. When your listing shows up on the first page of category “SEO” on site X for example, the weight of that link pointing back to your website will likely be a lot greater than showing up on page 54 of site X for “SEO”.
Not only for link-building, but improving your listing also helps maintain higher quality web directories.
HotFrog.com and AboutUs.org are two example web directories worth optimizing in.
Posted by Wesley LeFebvre on October 15, 2009
I always take notice of the individuals who participate on this blog by leaving comments to my posts (that is why you should leave comments on all the blogs you read). And one thing I noticed was many of your business websites don’t have your links followed on AboutUs.org. That is having them remove rel=”nofollow” on the links from aboutus.org to your website.
So I thought I’d let you know of a great way to get free, anchor-text friendly links from a great resource.
If you don’t already have your website listed on AboutUs then DO IT NOW. But also don’t just add your website, do it thoroughly. Once you have your listing complete and looking good, then you can ask them to remove rel=”nofollow”. Check out this discussion on how to get your links profollowed on AboutUs.
What I usually do is create a complete business listing there, then go to their chat room and ask someone to profollow my listing. They usually reply fairly quickly, but if not you can send them an email too.
Be sure to do a good job with your business listing before making the request. This is a great free resource for small businesses to build quality links and get some additional web presence. Not only that, the better you do with your listing the higher up you will show in their category lists. For example, my business website and my SEO blog come up #2 and #3 respectively for SEO. http://www.aboutus.org/list/seo. I’ll go into optimizing your aboutus.org listing in another post.
Posted by Wesley LeFebvre on October 8, 2009
If you haven’t heard, there is a lot of concern on the Internet today regarding paid links. And that’s a whole other blog post altogether. In the meantime, Aaron Wall does a great job explaining the good, the bad, & the ugly.
Just be sure to use common sense when submitting your website to directories; not all directories seem to be on Google’s “naughty” list. In fact, there are a few directories which appear to be well respected by Google – at least for the moment anyway.
Here are five general web directories to consider for link-building:
DMOZ
The Open Directory Project, or ODP, is one of Internet’s largest, free, human-edited web directories. It can take days to several weeks to be listed here, and don’t count on your website getting listed. Each category has it’s own volunteer editor; some editors do a good job, while others don’t seem to follow the guidelines very ethically. I’ve seen great websites get ignored, while some of the worst websites get listed in just a few days. Regardless, if you can score a listing here it will likely help your website’s search rankings. Submit to DMOZ
Best of the Web Directory
The Best of the Web Directory, or BOTW, is one of the Internet’s oldest web directories. They offer a $299 lifetime listing or a $149/yr (nonrefundable) listing. If you sign up for a reseller account you can get 25% off your own listings as well as a 25% recurring commission for the life of any listings purchased through your affiliate links. Submit to BOTW
JoeAnt
This is a good place to get a reasonably priced permanent listing which Google seems to “approve” of. Don’t count on getting good anchor text though. Just like DMOZ, these editors are volunteers, so editors put whatever makes the most sense to them, even if it isn’t complete or right. Because of that, their fee makes some sense here. Submit to JoeAnt
Business.com
This business directory is also $299/yr. They also offer decent PPC and banner advertising. Submit to Business.com
Yahoo! Directory
For most website the standard Yahoo! Directory Submit service costs $299 (nonrefundable) for each listing submitted. They will approve or deny you website within 7 business days. The $299 fee is recurring for each subsequent year. However I have seen many listings stay in the directory long after they were canceled. Submit to Yahoo!
I know, If you add up these numbers you can quickly pay over a thousand bucks. I’m not necessarily suggesting you submit to all of these directories. What I am saying is they are worth considering for any link-building campaign. Whether you submit to one or all five of them should depend on your budget, your industry, and how well your link-building is going overall. I recommend using them in this order:
1)DMOZ – Because it’s free of course!
2)BOTW – Either $99/yr, or $299 lifetime
3)JoeAnt – $39 lifetime
4)Business.com – $299/yr
5)Yahoo! Directory – $299/yr
Don’t expect to receive much direct traffic from these or any other directories for that matter. However, these particular ones appear to be on Google’s “approved” list, and Google follows their links aggressively. That alone makes makes them worth considering when doing your link building.
Posted by Wesley LeFebvre on August 19, 2009
While I don’t recommend paying for links on a bunch of websites to help increase your link popularity, or PR; there are a few which may help increase your PageRank, as well as deliver valuable traffic to your website.
Best of the Web (BOTW) is one of those web directories!
BOTW.org is rather expensive, however many of the sub-directories here appear to have decent PageRank, contain a list of quality websites, and gets a ton of visitors. So submitting here, in affect, is much more valuable than submitting to 10 or more low-quality directories.
If you decide to submit your website here, why not Become a BOTW reseller? This will save you and your clients 25% on each directory submission. Even if you only plan on submitting one directory listing, why not quickly save yourself 25% by signing up for their reseller program.
The sign-up process takes no more than a minute or two, and you can choose to be paid via PayPal or check.
One of the coolest things about this program is earning annual commissions on approved directory listings!
So be sure to check out BOTW.org the next time you are looking for a high-quality web directory, or decent reseller plan.
Note: Since the search engine Gods do frown upon buying links; I wouldn’t “expect” to receive any “Link Juice” or PageRank increase from web directories. However, many tests have shown that some quality directories still pass the almighty Link Juice. A good rule of thumb is to submit to directories you expect to receive traffic from directly, and not with the intentions or expectation of increasing your PageRank.
