What is a Web Directory?

A web directory in it’s simplest form can be thought of
as a human indexed search engine. Humans can visit a
directory website and make resource suggestions through an
online form. A human editor will review the suggestion and add
it to the directory provided it meets the submission guidelines
for the directory.

General vs Niche Directories

There are two major types of web directories on the internet,
general and niche. A general web directory
will have it’s resources sorted into a large number of
categories covering a wide range of topics. Niche web
directories tend to focus on one subject with resources
sorted into a smaller number of highly related categories.

Purpose of Web Directories

The major purpose of a web directory is to provide directory
users with a categorized list of high quality websites
from a chosen field or industry. With the advent of search
engines as the preferred method for finding internet
resources the importance of directories as information
provider’s has diminished. But, as search engine technology and
the field of search engine optimization have evolved, a new use
for web directories has materialized.

Directories and Link Popularity

Current search engine ranking algorithms place a huge
importance on back links to a website as an indicator of
it’s importance on the internet (known as link popularity).
Search engine’s value links to websites from web directories
because these directories have human editors. Having your
website listed in a respected web directory is an indicator to
the search engines that your website has met a certain standard
for quality and is a site worth linking to.

Search engine’s also tend to serve up category pages from
trusted web directories near the top of their search
results so having your website listed in as many high
quality web directories as you can should be part of any website
marketing plan, especially when your website is new.

Getting your website listed in a web directory is also an
excellent way to build high quality, search engine
friendly back links to your website and gain targeted web
traffic from both directory users and the boost to your
search engine rankings from the increased link popularity of
your website.

Please note, it is worth taking the time to carefully review a
directory prior to making a submission. Not all directories are
search engine friendly or provide traffic to their listings so
it is up to the submitter to gather as much information about
the web directory submission guidelines, linking structure and
reputation prior to submitting a resource for inclusion.

Non-Reciprocal Link Building For Higher Search Engine Positioning

Non-Reciprocal Link Building For Higher Search Engine
Positioning By Dave Davies, Beanstalk Search Engine Positioning,
Inc.

It’s no SEO secret that inbound links to your site are an
important part of any complete search engine positioning
strategy. You’ve undoubtedly received numerous emails touting
the benefits of exchanging links with other websites. Provided
that the sites are related, reciprocal linking can definitely
help you in your quest for higher rankings however, establishing
quality non-reciprocal links to your website will provide added
weight and many of the tactics used in developing these links
have built-in relevancy.

There are two main advantages to non-reciprocal links as opposed
to reciprocal links. The first is that these links will hold
more weight, as they aren’t reciprocated (the search engines can
detect whether links are reciprocal). The second advantage is
that they don’t have to be monitored as closely as reciprocal
links. With reciprocal links one has to be aware of unethical
webmasters who will take links down or use other tactics to
insure that the search engines don’t see the links pages. You
have to be aware of these events so that you can remove their
links from your site if warranted however with non-reciprocal
links you don’t have to be as concerned as you’re not linking to
them.

These are far from the only benefits of non-reciprocal link
building but they are two of the most beneficial for your site
and for you as its webmaster. But how do you get something for
nothing? Why would someone want to link to you in exchange for
no links back? Keep in mind the acronym TANSTAAFL (There Ain’t
No Such Thing As A Free Lunch). In short, you’re not going to
get something for nothing but it’s well worth the “something”
you’ll have to put in.

So non-reciprocal links are beneficial to your search engine
positioning campaign … but how do you do it? There are a number
of tactics that will work. Here are a few of the more successful:

Write Good Content It’s shocking but some people will actually
link to your site because it is a valuable resource that their
visitors may find interesting or useful. The search engines
initially gave incoming links value based on the belief that
sites with incoming links tended to be sites that others find
worth linking to. People actually linked to sites simply because
they found the content useful. Believe it or not this practice
still exists today.

If you have a quality site with great content, preferably
updated regularly, others in your industry should naturally link
to you. It’s also appropriate to ask other webmasters to link to
your site either through direct contact or by posting a page on
your site, which provides images and/or link details. If you get
even one link out of your efforts it was worth the 5 or so
minutes it should take to put up the page.

Directory Listings Provided that you’re willing to invest a bit
of time and money, directory listings are probably the easiest
way to get non-reciprocal links. Provided that you’re site has
some value to it and is not offensive, most directories will
list it though usually there is a “review fee” involved.

There are the well know directories such as the Yahoo! Directory
(http://dir.yahoo.com/) however you may find that the price tag
for a guaranteed review from Yahoo! at $299 to be a bit more
than you wanted to spend for a single listing. Another “major
player” in the directory world is the Open Directory Project (or
DMOZ) (http://www.dmoz.org/) however you may find that with
volunteer editors, your site can take many months to get listed,
if at all.

Fortunately there are many “secondary” directories and there are
also literally thousands of topic-specific directories that can
provide valuable listings. In fact, topic-specific directory
listings can in many ways be considered more valuable in that
the link to your site is entirely relevant and also, you should
get some quality targeted traffic from your listing provided
that the directory itself ranks well.

How much you should pay for a specific listing is debatable
depending on the industry, the value of the link, etc. however
topical directory listings are usually somewhere around
$30-$100/yr in the majority of cases. If your link will be
placed on a page with a good PageRank and will fewer than 50 or
so other sites it is worth considering.

Article Submissions As you’re reading this article you should
certainly be able to infer that I personally am a fan of writing
articles as a form of non-reciprocal link building. Articles
provide perhaps the best of all worlds in that they provide
valuable and entirely relevant links and also can be a great
source of targeted traffic.

That said, articles are also the most time consuming of link
building efforts. One must consider the time it takes to write
the article, find sites to publish it and also the submission of
the articles to all these sites. As a tip, when you find sites
you wish to submit your article to add them to a folder in your
“Favorites” (or “Bookmarks” for those of us using Firefox). If
you decide to publish more articles in the future (and you
probably will) it’s certainly helpful to start with a list of
the places you’re submitting to rather than having to find them
all again down the road.

When you’re writing your article there are a few considerations
that you should make. One of the biggest benefits of articles as
a link building measure is that the links are relevant in that
they are about the topic of your site. Why not insure that your
titles and content are written such that they add further weight
for your targeted keywords. If you look at the title of this
article “Non-Reciprocal Link Building For Higher Search Engine
Positioning” you’ll notice that the phrase “search engine
positioning” (our main targeted phrase) is present. Additionally
the phrase is repeated periodically in the content area. This
will add relevancy to this article and our targeted phrase. If
you look in the credits below you’ll notice that the anchor text
linking to our site is “Beanstalk Search Engine Positioning”
(assuming that the site on which you are reading this article
allowed for HTML submissions otherwise the link should simply be
the http format). This will add additional relevancy tying that
phrase to our site.

Because the Beanstalk website is still in the sandbox on Google
it is unable to rank for this highly competitive phrase however
you may notice that currently the #11 ranking page is one of our
articles. This alone should demonstrate that these articles can
pick up relevancy. Once Beanstalk is out of the sandbox on
Google we will have many highly relevancy links that are strong
enough to rank #11 on their own. You can do the same provided
that you treat writing your articles the same as your content.
It must contain your targeted keywords and it must read well.

Additionally, you are going to want to search for many related
websites to submit to. You can visit the search engines
themselves to find related sites (in our case we would run a
search such as “search engine positioning articles submit”) or
you can use a program like PR Prowler
(http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/resources/recommended/pr-prowler.ht
m) to find the links and also insure a minimum PageRank on the
sites you are submitting to.

If you decide to publish more than one article I would further
recommend that you add to your list with each submission. Take a
few minutes before you submit and find an additional 5+ sites to
submit your articles to. You’ll find your link popularity and
rankings will reward you for it.

Summary Of course there are many additional tactics you can use
to get non-reciprocal links including paid links, press
releases, etc. however those noted above are the ones which will
produce the most consistently over time and while they can be
time consuming, are well worth the effort.

I wish you the very best of luck in developing your
non-reciprocal links and in increasing your search engine
positioning. It will take time; it will take energy; but done
right it will be very rewarding.

Dave Davies is the CEO of Beanstalk Search Engine Positioning
(http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/). He has been optimizing and
ranking websites for over three years and has a solid history of
success. Dave is available to answer any questions that you may
have about your website and how to get it into the top positions
on the major search engines. To keep informed about what going
on in the SEO world you may also want to visit the newly created
SEO blog (http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/blog/) on the Beanstalk
website.

What’s the Big Hurry?

by Rick Hendershot, Marketing Bites

Quite often I get asked what the magic solution is for getting
better Google ranking. Sometimes the questions sound fairly
naive, something like this:

“I have recently established a site called wazooski.com and
would like to rank much higher in Google, Yahoo and MSN. Can you
tell me how to do this without spending a lot of money? Can I
get into the top 10 within 1 or 2 months?”

This is one of those “rookie” questions. Experienced marketers
know that predicting search engine rankings is always a hit or
miss affair. SEO practitioners who “guarantee” high search
engine rankings are making misleading claims, intended only to
sell their services.

Imagine how many sites within any competitive area are going
after those “top 10″ rankings. Many of your competitors have
been around for a few years, so they have an established site
with lots of valuable content, steady traffic, and thousands of
sites linking into them. How can you expect just to throw up a
site and within a month or two walk away with a “top 10″
position?

This is only possible within a narrowly defined, highly
specialized niche. Say for instance you are going to hold a
Wazooski family reunion next year, and want to use the internet
to promote it. Chances are a few well placed announcements
scattered around 20 or 30 article sites, directories and blogs
will generate enough search engine activity to get you good
positioning in the search engines. Within a month or two you
should get the number one spot for “Wazooski family reunion”,
within the top 10 for “Wazooski”, and possibly even an
honourable mention further down the list for “family reunion”.
Using a blog or two will often speed this process up
considerably.

The reason is pretty obvious: there is not a lot of competition
for “Wazooski family reunion”. In fact you may be the only one
competing for that term. All you really need to do is get your
site or your announcements spidered and the chances are pretty
good that you will get a high ranking almost immediately.

But try this with a more competitive term and you are talking a
completely different game. Considering that most competitive
terms have thousands of sites chasing after that illusive “top
10″ ranking, you will be lucky to even get on the radar screen.

And trying to do it within a month or two is almost completely
unrealistic.

Who You Should & Shouldn’t be Trading Links With

Most people agree that a good and free way of getting traffic to
your site is by exchanging links (reciprocal linking) with
fellow webmasters. This is also agreed to be a good way for
moving up the search engine results page for your chosen
keywords.

However webmasters are often confused as to which sites they
should exchange links with. Many read that incoming links from
websites that have the same keywords result in higher rankings
with the search engines. This often results in webmasters
setting up reciprocal links with websites that are in direct
competition with their own.

Now take just 30 seconds to think of any successful business
that hosts advertisements for their competitors. Does the
Coca-Cola website link to Pepsi? Does Ford’s website link to
Daimler-Chrysler’s? No of course they don’t, so why would your
website link to one in competition (unless they paid you a big
fat check for the privilege).

So who should you exchange links with? Try and get inside the
mind of the people you want to visit your site, your ideal
targeted visitor. What would they be interested in as well as
your product?

For example, let’s assume that you own a website that sells gold
watches. You could link to other watch selling sites but as
detailed above it could actually harm your site by taking
prospective customers away.

Before deciding which sort of sites to trade links with you need
to think of the sort of people that are going to be interested
in purchasing gold watches. What sort of people will they be?
Try and put yourself in the shoes of your customers.

Gold watches are a luxury item and aren’t cheap. The people you
want to visit your site and the people who are most likely to
make a purchase are going to have a good disposable income, and
income they are willing to spend on expensive things. What other
products would they also be interested in purchasing? The first
thing that springs to (my) mind is designer clothing. People who
are interested in buying a gold watch are making a statement.
‘Look how much money I’ve got’. Wearing designer clothes is
another way of making that statement. So find websites that sell
designer gear and exchange links. Remember it’s worth their
while too because your customer base is very similar to theirs
and you will both benefit.

You can then go on to exchange links that with sites that sell
other luxury items like luxury cars, holidays etc. Once you have
a better understanding of your target customer profile it’s not
so difficult to find linking partners who will benefit you AND
are of interest to your customers.

So when thinking of websites to exchange links with, I don’t
think of those that are similar to mine. I think ‘who is my
customer and what interests them as well as my product’.

Get it right and you’ll have a constant stream of quality,
targeted traffic and less reliance on your search engine
ranking. Get it wrong and you’ll be sending your customers to
the competition.

Increase On-line Website Traffic with Reciprocal Linking

Even though reciprocal linking has come under scrutiny by search
engines such as Google, having links from other websites is a
critical element in every search engine optimization campaign.
Linking is at the center of how the Internet works. Link
popularity is and I believe always will be a key component in
getting top ranking website.

An election analogy works well in explaining link popularity.
Each link to your web page counts as a “vote” for that page.
“Votes” from websites with high link popularity count more than
links from other sites. Links that use keywords that match your
page also have their “votes” count more.

These “votes” add up to PageRank, which Google uses to determine
the importance of a web page in the search engine results. If
your site gets enough “votes”, your website can “win the
election” with top rankings and increased web traffic.

The “election laws” are set and enforced by the search engines.
The job of the search engines is to give consumers accurate and
relevant results if they want these customers to keep coming
back. The search engines are constantly changing and improving
their algorithms to detect “election fraud” from those who are
trying to trick their way into a top ranking spot. The best way
to succeed with the engines is to focus on giving good content
that visitors would be interested in and then you are working
along with the search engines toward the same goals. This
includes how you approach your linking strategies.

The SE’s are now clamping down on “campaign finance violations”
in the form of paid text links. These links typically have poor
anchor text and may be on a page that is oversaturated with
links. Many times these identical links appear on hundreds or
even thousands of web pages. The search engines, particularly
Google have set-up methods for detecting these links. These
links now are being devalued or filtered out completely.

Search engines are also clamping down on “unfair campaign
practice” This includes link farms, hidden links, search engine
spamming, cloaking, doorway pages and other black hat SEO
practices.

So exactly what is a link farm? This is a type of “ballot box
stuffing.” A link farm is a web page (or even an entire website)
that is set up for the sole purpose of allowing webmasters to
exchange links with each other for search engine ranking
purposes only. These links are usually unorganized and many have
little or no relevance to the topic of the website. The key
element here is that link farms are not created for the website
visitor, but for the sole purpose of getting good rankings.

What do the search engines consider ethical “campaigning”? Don’t
opt for the quick fix in order to generate instant sales. Focus
on good content and designing your website for your visitor, not
the search engine. Make your website compliant with what the
search engines want, rather than tricking your way to good
rankings.

Does reciprocal linking work today? Absolutely! Here are some
things you should consider as you develop your linking
strategies. The websites you select to trade links with should
be of interest to your site’s visitors. Choose a theme and topic
that is consistent with your website. Keep the maximum links per
page to 10 and categorize your links to make it easy for
visitors.

Choose only websites that are high in quality, high in PageRank,
and links with your targeted keywords. To get links, try www.freelinkcentral.com
. I like this link exchange directory because of its research
resources. It has keyword search capabilities and shows the
PageRank of every link… and best of all it is free.

Other ideas to consider, try adding a paragraph of text or
content to each links page. This tends to give a natural look
and less like a link directory. During any link trading campaign
change your link text regularly. Add your links on a slow and
regular basis rather than all at once.

Link building has always been on the scene, and links have a
nice benefit, they drive direct traffic to your site when
clicked. They have an added benefit in that they greatly improve
your standing with the search engines. But be very careful if
you are doing link building purely for the sake of the search
engines.

Link building is usually the most time consuming and most
powerful part of effective broad based SEO.

This article may be reprinted in its entirety for use in
newsletters, websites, article archives and newspapers provided
that this resource box is left intact and all links are left
active.

Copyright November 2005

Doug Williams is the founder and president of Doug Williams and
Associates, LLC. DWA is an Internet marketing and search engine
optimization firm. DWA also operates a managed linking service
“Don’t Worry About Links” at www.dwalink.com. Visit www.dougwilliams.com