March 9th, 2010 by Susie

We all know that link building strategies are an important part of SEO, but the link quality is as important as quantity if not more so. Directories are distinct from search engines in that they are created and maintained by real people. Essentially a lot of lists arranged by topic, most of the entries have a link and a little bit of page description, maybe an icon but usually not. It’s estimated that Yahoo’s directory services only gets about 1% of the traffic that Yahoo search gets, but that’s still a million or so searches a year and not to be dismissed lightly.

The quality of the directory is an important determinant in the question of whether it’s worthwhile submitting your link. Remember that links from sites with high authority are great for SEO, but any linkage with a shady or low quality website can do you harm. If the directory is just a list of links to pages without proper organization or page information to help users find the right one, forget about it, especially if there is a price tag involved. In fact, while it’s sometimes worth stumping up some cash for a paid directory listing, there are plenty of free ones that should be your first ports of call.

How much Google and the other engines trust a particular directory is an interesting question. On one hand, they are made by people, so they should only contain relevant results, but on the other hand, some of those people may not be using the listings in an ethical way. The best way of estimating whether or not a directory has decent authority or not is to try it. Is it useful to you, and easy to use? Are the results what you were looking for? If yes, the chances are that other people think so too and the search engines know it’s reliable. And, of course, more people are likely to find your site through a good directory than a bad one, so that works out nicely for all kinds of search engine optimisation reasons.

Getting your site included can be as simple as going to the directory page, entering the URL, and bang, there you go. Most better directories will make you jump through a few more hoops, but even if they don’t it’s still worth taking a little more time and creating a snappy page description at least. Have a look at the other entries in the category and try and find a unique selling point for your website. Also, make sure you list in the right categories. Choosing categories is just like choosing SEO keywords. More people will look for broad ones, but those categories will be bigger and have more competition in them. It might be better to be a big fish in a smaller category than be eaten by the sharks in a highly competitive field. Think about the long tail keywords and the categories that correspond to them.

Pick a couple of large general directories, and one or two that are more specific to your field, say on industry hubs or discussion sites. Depending on what you sell, it might also be worth targeting a few location-specific directories. As long as you choose them carefully and don’t restrict your SEO link building strategies to directories only (and avoid going overboard with an entry in every one you can find), having links from that kind of site could well have a positive impact on your search engine optimization campaign.

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