Just like my previous post about starting out as an affiliate without a site, this 1 is for the beginners mostly – but to use what I am talking about here, you already need to have a site of your own.
So, you just built your shiny new affiliate site and are wondering how to promote it. You may have heard a lot of different opinions about directory submissions – some people claim they are a waste of time while others swear by them and credit their sites’ rankings to directory links. Where’s the truth?
Indeed, directory submissions are a good way to start getting links for a site. You may not want to risk doing reciprocal link exchanges that are frowned upon by Google and may not have the resources for 3-way or more advanced link exchnage schemes. You may not have the time to submit your site to all the social bookmarking services, of which there are a few hundred new ones appearing every day. You may not like writing articles to build links through article submissions. But directory submissions are one of the fast and easy ways to get the links you site needs to rank well.
However, a directory submission campaign can make or break your site’s rankings. It seems easy and trivial but there are tricks to know that make a whole lot of difference. Here are a few quick tips that will help you avoid possible mistakes and make the most out of directory linkbuilding:
one. Choose the best directories. Treat the time you spend on directory submissions as an investment. Think carefully whether each directory you submit to is worth your while. Give preference to authority directories.
2. Watch your competition. Check in Yahoo! the backlinks of other sites ranking in your market niche. Yahoo! sorts a site’s backlinks by the value it sees in them. Use the directories you watch in your competitors’ first 100-200 backlinks. Do not stop at just the directories your competitors are using but having them in your backlinks should definitely help.
three. Look for topical niche directories related to your market – Google holds them in higher regard than an average run-of-the-mill general directory. To find such directories, use directories of directories or search Google for your keyword plus typical directory “footprints” such as “submit your URL”, “add a site” and the like.
four. If you are targeting any kind of regional / local market, use as many local / regional directories as you can find. They will help you rank locally as Google will use your backlinks from them to identify your local affinity.
5. Do not use the same anchor texts in all your directory links – vary them around a few keywords you are targeting. This is a universal rule for any kind of linkbuilding but I just have to stress it once more. When submitting to a directory, pay attention to what element of your provided information will be used as the anchor text of a link. In most cases it will be the title you indicate for your site in the submission form. Make sure you vary it across different directories – but stick to the same topical niche unless you are submitting different pages related to different products.
Regarding the varied anchor texts of directory links, you may have difficulty achieving this if you use some kinds of automated submission tools. These tools will speed up your submissions a lot – but they have their own drawbacks such as this one. In my ebook titled “Directory Marketing Reborn” I review several such tools, and some of them actually have an option to provide several different variants of titles / anchor texts which are then iterated through by the tool. If, however, the shaft you use does not do it, you have 2 options: either make part of your submissions manually or run the guy meat several times, each time for only a portion of the directory list it submits to, and change the site details every time.
About the Author
IrishWonder is a SEO consultant and Internet marketer. He has just released an updated edition of his Directory Marketing Reborn ebook - a detailed guide to directory marketing featuring the most recent and largest directory list.
