The more that relevant websites link to your website, the better Google likes you. It is authority by association. Think of it this way: you have a LinkedIn profile and the more your colleagues/clients recommend you the better your professional standing. Similarly, when a website links to your website, Google considers it a recommendation or a vote of confidence and increases your ranking.
The best way to get back-links is to create valuable content; create it and they will link! Additionally, you can create social media accounts that link back to your website. Yet another proven method is to submit your website URL to web-directories with decent Google page rank, ex: Yahoo and D’moz.
This latter (directory submissions) link building method is a painful and tedious process…best done manually! Don’t even think about paying someone to blast your website on tons of worthless directories programmatically. This can actually do you more harm than good. Google’s algorithm can sniff paid robotic submissions from a hop away; and believe me when I tell you that there is no fury worse for your web-future than Google scorned!
I am currently implementing a comprehensive directory submission campaign for our national clients and thought I would share my process and give you some pointers on how to tackle this. Please add your tried and tested techniques to this blog post through the comments section.
7 WAYS TO MAKE DIRECTORY SUBMISSIONS LESS PAINFUL!
- Create a list of reputable directories (categorize paid and free )
- Create a spreadsheet to document the submission process, with fields that include: directory URL, Category submitted, URL submitted, date of submission, title/anchor text submitted, status
- Create (in Notepad/Textpad) at least half a dozen variations for: title, description, keywords that you can copy paste into directory forms
- Create a document with details: contact name (first and last), email, phone, address so you can copy and paste
- Designate a credit card and in a Word document write all the info you will need to fill out for the payment process so you don’t have to type it in each time
- List the domains/urls you need to submit (don’t always submit the home page)
- Register for a directory management/link management tool (RavenSEO, SheerSEO, etc.). This is optional, but recommended to check Anchor text, Page rank, Number of outbound links, Availability of the page, Presence of meta tags “nofollow” and “noindex” etc.
- In your browser, open all the directories one by one and add to your favorites. Bookmark them for later use
Now that you have all the information handy you can go ahead and start the submission process. Open multiple tabs in your browser and from your “favorites” folder pick several directories at a time and submit the same information to them one at one time. Ex: copy the title text that you have prepared and paste that for directory 1, 2, 3, 4 and so on. Repeat this process to fill out all the required fields and submit. Make sure you document all the information in the spreadsheet you had initially created so you can refer to it. If you are doing this for a client you may also want to take screen caps of filled out listing forms as added proof.
This should make directory submissions less of a nuisance and more of an organized process that will have positive impact on your website’s authority and popularity. Dread no more the countless hours of manual directory listings that you would need to make while sitting in your lonely cubicle. Put on some music, get armed with all your prepared content and submit away. You are on your way to achieving some serious Googthority!
