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SEO Best Practice: Befriend the Directories
Why Directories Are Important
Directories should play a major role in your SEO efforts, well,
at least the big and important ones, for the following reasons:
- Listings within major directories provide "context" to search
engines. For example, if your web site is listed in the Open
Directory Project under the category Pets -> Weird Pets -> Blue
Cats, search engines will assume your web site has something to
do with blue cats. Your web site and pages will be indexed
faster and might have a better ranking in search results for
specific terms (in this case, "blue cats").
- Major directories (such as Yahoo! Directory, ODP, Jayde etc.)
have high page ranks and as long as you obtain a non-reciprocal
listing from them, paid or unpaid, your page rank will benefit
greatly.
- Major directories are often replicated by other web sites
(think of ODP, with hundreds of copies) which means that a
listing somewhere in such a major directory will cause listings
in all replica sites, contributing towards your link popularity
efforts and boosting page ranks.
- The ODP (Open Directory Project) feeds results to Google, AOL,
AltaVista, Lycos, Netscape - once again, a presence in ODP can
get you quite far.
Submitting to Directories
As with most good things in life, you need to make efforts to
get into quality directories. Although detailed instructions on
how to submit your web sites are always provided by the
directories, there are certain aspects to consider before you
start hunting for directories and submit your web sites:
- Start with Yahoo! Directory and the Open Directory Project:
being listed in the two of them is worth more than being listed
in all other directories together! You will find soon enough
that, unfortunately, being listed in these two is the hardest
thing to do: Yahoo requires a $299 annual fee for regular web
sites (only
non-commercial sites qualify for a free listing) and
$600 for adult sites, while ODP is free but you need A LOT of
luck to make your way into it. ODP is so large yet is strictly
human edited, which means the waiting time for a listing can
extend to even years! Make your duty as a SEO worker and submit
your web site, but don't get your hopes too high, unfortunately.
- Religiously follow the submission guidelines provided by
directories: read them as many times as you need to make sure
you will not upset its editors by submitting your site the wrong
way, with inaccuracies, the wrong description style, or to the
wrong category.
- Try to find niche directories if your web site's content is
suitable for that. For example, if your web site covers
Marketing topics, focus your efforts into finding a Marketing directory and
submit your site there: search engines love links from sites
relevant to yours!
- You will probably come across many directories with paid
inclusions: use your common sense to appreciate if it's worth it
or not. A good criteria is to check their Google Page Rank: if
it's at least 3 levels higher than your site's Page Rank, it's
probably worth spending the money for the inclusion fee.
However, do look for directories with a flat, one-time fee
rather than recurring monthly or annual fees: you'll end up
spending less money!
In the end, remember a simple rule: if it's too easy to get into
a directory, it's probably not worth the effort to get into it
in the first case.
About the author:
Otilia is an e-Marketing expert. She owns Marketing Links Directory -
MarketingWHO, and her current SEO clients are Marketing & e-Marketing
Articles and Resources - TeaWithEdge and Colorado Homes |
Denver Real Estate.
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