SEO|The Full Insider SEO Details Exposed

If you were writing a textbook on SEO linking circa 2001, you almost certainly would have included a chapter on web directories. They used to be the primary way of actively acquiring one-way inbound links, before content syndication, blogs, or the paid link market really took off.

Web Directories and SEO Links: What Went Wrong?

Fast forward a few years, and you’d have to rewrite the chapter on directories and web links. In fact, you would probably downgrade web directories from a chapter to a page or two. In the SEO world, nothing good ever lasts long, and so it is with web directories.

* Traffic. With Google more accurate than ever, there was no more reason to turn to a human-edited list of websites. A directory might get you one or two click-throughs a month–or none at all.

* Redirects. Once directory owners realized their link popularity was valuable, they started hording it. Overnight, many, if not most, directories switched their HTML links to search-engine-invisible redirects.

* Fees. Most directories started charging for inclusion, or at least, for inclusion with a link rather than a redirect. If the fees were reasonable, that would not be so bad. But why would you pay $35 for a link on a PR 3 page with dozens of other links and virtually no content, on a site with dwindling traffic?

* Corruption. In the SEO world, low-hanging fruit quickly goes rotten. Any volunteer-edited commercial category in a link directory runs a very real risk of being taken over by a corrupt SEO.

* Dubious link popularity. Given the notoriety of many directories for selling or inappropriately bestowing links, it’s not hard to imagine a search engine quality control engineer turning the link popularity juice off from these sites.

* “Welcome to our list.” If a directory doesn’t charge a fee to enter, it may ask for payment in the form of an email address. You’d better use your special Hotmail account for that one.

* Anchor text. Many directories do not allow for anchor text to be specified, delighting in providing as little SEO value as possible for the effort involved in submitting to them.

* Time. When link directories really were vital efforts to categorize the web, getting a link in them was as simple as having a good website and letting them know about it. Now that they’ve turned into tightly rationed supplies of link popularity, that kind of responsiveness is out the window.

* Idiosyncratic applications without any promise of timely follow-up.

* Application forms that often empty straight into a black hole:
* No way of checking on the status of submissions.
* Threats of scuttling submissions that are re-submitted when there is no response.

Web Directory Linking Alternatives for the 21st Century

* Reciprocal linking with a twist. If you network with other site owners, you can triangulate link trades so that they are not direct. Heck, if you really like each other, you may just link to each others’ sites for the sake of it! It’s worked for me with some high-PR links.

* Blogging. Blog early, blog often, and someone is bound to link to you. It’s the nature of blogging. The fastest way to get inbound links from your blog? Write about other blogs. The more controversial, the better. Post this article on a webmaster blog, and in the same post, reference the blog of someone who thinks link directories are still a good idea! In the blogosphere, arguments mean lots of links.

* Article directories. These are the closest things to link directories, from an SEO standpoint, to emerge in the 21st century. You submit an article to one of these sites (of which there are over 200). In your article you include a link to your site. Article directories are everything link directories used to be: responsive, fair, fast, no-fee, relevant, and quality sources of not only links but information. OK, most of their pages are PR0 and the rest tend to be PR 1-2. But with most article directories, you can choose your exact anchor text for the link–often more valuable than PageRank for non-competitive search phrases. Besides, if most of your links are on PR 4+ pages, how natural will that look?

In short, even if web link directories do still have some SEO value, they should no longer be your first stop for one-way inbound links. There are much better, and much less aggravating, linking methods.

Summary: Are article directories the new SEO link directories? As 1990s-era link directories fade into relative irrelevance, article directories offer new opportunities for one-way inbound links. There are currently about 200 of these directories, none of which charges a fee.

Article Directories: The New Web Link Directories?

We are witnessing a new explosion in web directories that are actually worth the investment in time to submit to them. No, not link directories–their time has passed for good. The new directories are article directories.

What Are Article Directories?

Article directories are sites such as http://isnare.com and http://goarticles.com, which aggregate large numbers of articles into massive, categorized databases. Most of them act as clearinghouses for reprint content, encouraging visitors to add the content to their own sites. The articles are screened for basic indicators of quality and relevance before being posted.

The articles each have an author’s resource box, an “about the author” paragraph at the end of the article. The directories allow authors to include a link, and often, multiple links, in the resource box.

I personally know of about 200 such directories that will accept articles on any topic–with a live link and without charging a fee. There are at least as many specialized directories that limit themselves to business-only articles, women’s issues, technology, etc. All you need is a single good page of well-written content–and if your site doesn’t have that already, you probably should give up your web ambitions right now.

Article Directories’ Linking Advantages

* Anchor text. About two-thirds of the article directories allow for the author to select the anchor text of the link in the author’s resource box. This is the primary value of the links from the article directories. The article directory pages usually have PR 0; some have PR 1-3. Fortunately, anchor text is often a deciding factor in ranking for non-competitive search strings that make up as much as half or more of all web searches. These links may also help a site that already has competitive PageRank but is getting beaten in the SERPs for want of anchor text relevance.

* Relevant links. The links are at least as relevant as links from link directories. The page on which the link is located is categorized within the site according to topics such as automotive, technology, decorating, or sports. Since most of the directories use the article title as the webpage title, you can even assure that the title of the webpage with your link has your target keyword.

* Traffic. Click-throughs on the links in the author’s resource boxes bring traffic, particularly in the early days after the article is submitted.

* Reprints. Clearinghouse websites that offer articles for reprint pack the double advantage of a link on their site and a link on any site whose webmaster chooses to reprint the article. In reality, few articles get reprinted since the competition for reprints is fierce. Moreover, fewer than a dozen of the 200-odd article directories actually get many reprints. The market is dominated, as most web markets are, by the best established sites.

* Mindshare. A click-through from a traditional link is just another visitor. But someone who has read a page of content from your site and clicked through the author’s resource box link is generally a highly qualified visitor who has been partly sold on the value of your offering. Meanwhile, even readers who do not click-through have been exposed to your message. You can help shape the market, building awareness of your product or service.

In short, article directories offer just about everything the web link directories used to, and more.

It’s the timeless question: how do you get other sites to link to you? The most commonly discussed ways are reciprocal linking (swapping links) and buying links. Yet there’s another important tool for building links that should be a part of your toolbox: distributing content in exchange for one-way inbound links.

Comparison with Other Linking Methods
Reciprocal Linking: The big advantage of content distribution over swapping links is that the links built are one-way, and therefore presumably more valuable. Of course, reciprocal links still have value, but relying primarily on them might hamper your SEO efforts.
Indirect Reciprocal Links: I link my site A to your site, so you link your site to my site B. The problems are that this can be a lot of work, and also, Google can detect indirect links if you do it more than once with the same group of sites, which might make your linking arrangements look like a link farm.
Paid Links: The problem with paid links is 1) the costs add up; 2) search engines are getting better and better at discounting paid links. According to Matt Cutts’ blog, “I wouldn’t be surprised if search engines begin to take stronger action against link buying in the near future…link-selling sites can lose their ability to give reputation (e.g. PageRank and anchortext).”

Kinds of Content to Distribute
Articles. This is the essential kind of content distribution, to the point that many people consider content distribution simple as “article marketing.” However, you’re missing out on a few other sources of links if you only do articles.
News blurbs. A lot of news-style sites will only reprint pieces of a couple of paragraphs. The good news is that often enough the whole point of these news blurbs is to include links to other sites, in a sort of “look what we’ve found” kind of way, a la Slashdot.org
Press Releases. There are some sites that aggressively reprint press releases. A press release is like an article, only in a very specific press release format, and frankly that’s not that enjoyable to read. I don’t know why some sites are so head-over-heels over press releases, but, hey, that’s their business. The good news is that even if you can’t write and don’t want to hire a writer, press releases (at least basic ones) are pretty easy to do.
Tools, games and other webware. Sites with popular tools, software, Flash games and other webware often let other sites use it in exchange for a link. The big potential downside is technical support.
Images. Images, especially charts and photographs, are important forms of content on the web. If you have great images on your site and people ask you to use them on their sites, require a backlink in exchange. The problem with images is that they are so easily stolen. Stolen words can be uncovered with a web search. You could try to watermark images with a copyright symbol, URL, and the link requirement. But in the process you’d make the image much less desirable.
Web design templates. These have been freely distributed for a long time. Yet they are even more easily stolen than images. Also, if you embed a link in the footer of a web template, what you’ll get back are sitewide links, which are often thought to be filtered out in search engines.

Maximizing Content Distribution Links’ Effectiveness: Anchor Text
Anchor text. You need optimized anchor text to rank high for any competitive keyword. That means you need your target keyword in the anchor text, and very importantly, variants of the target keyword (too many links with the exact same anchor text may be filtered). The problem is that some sites by default don’t let you choose the anchor text of the link to your site. So you need to: 1) look for sites that do reprint content with optimized anchor text; 2) specifically ask for your target anchor text to be used. Also, do keep in mind that a true natural linking structure will require you to have a number of links that are not anchor-text-optimized, typically with the URL as the anchor text.

How to Find Sites
Finding sites to submit content is the biggest challenge. You can start by asking around to any other webmasters you already have a relationship with. Next, web-search. The classic method is “submit article” + [keyword]. Most of the sites you find this way won’t be good candidates, which is why this can be a bit labor-intensive. I use offshore labor for this step, as well as a program that will sort and store all the search results into a spreadsheet; otherwise it might not be worth it. Then again, the same would be true for finding reciprocal linking partners.

Ethical Issues & Best Practices

Golden rule: remember that there’s a human being who has to approve your article for submission.
Read and adhere to all submission guidelines.
Avoid automation. There’s almost always some detail of submission that requires a human eye: a multitude of html formatting requirements, changing site themes, etc.
Don’t submit by email unless specifically instructed. Using a contact form prevents possible sp@m accusations.
Only approach websites that request content submissions.
Don’t misrepresent reprint content as original.
Don’t submit the same content too often. After about two hundred reprints, a lot of people will be seeing the same thing over and over again and possibly complaining.

In short, as SEO gets more competitive, having more and more linking methods at your disposal gets more and more important. Don’t overlook this important tool.

Search Engine Optimization is one way in which you can get your website in front of the search engines. But what do you need to do in the Search Engine Optimization process? And is it worth it? I will give a quick overview of some of the factors involved and I’ll let you determine for yourself if it is worth it.

KEYWORDS

First and foremost, search engines look for keywords and keyword phases in which to index your webpages. So you must prepare each page for the search engines. Thus, when you are writing copy for your website, keep four or five keywords that you want to emphasize for that webpage — then weave the words into the copy.

However, don’t blatantly use the keywords over and over again — or as they say — use keyword stuffing — or the search engines will penalize you for it. And, needless to say, your readers will click away, if the flow of the copy is so obviously stuffed with your keywords that it jeopardizes the quality of the copy. Quality of copy first, keywords second.

META-TAGS

There are several meta-tags that the search engines look at. The two most important are:

1. Title
2. Description

Both the Title and the Description Tags should have your most relevant keywords. Now, the keywords meta-tags is not used by Google, but the other search engines may utilize them. Are they important? It really depends who you are talking too. Some say, by putting the keywords into your webpage you are giving your competitors the edge. Others, feel that if your competitors want to know what keywords you are using they will find a way. (I’m of the latter’s thinking.)

LINKING

Linking is another important factor in Search Engine Optimization. Without proper linking — or establishing a linking campaign — your great site may not be found by the search engines. You need to find ways in which to allow human visitors, beside yourself, to find you.

INBOUND LINKS

Inbound links — links pointing to your website is very good for search engine rankings, and gives more ways for human visitors to find your website.

How do you get inbound links? Write articles and place them on article directories for ezine publishers, newsletter publishers, or bloggers to pick up.

Blogs is another way in which you can get one-way links to your site. Again, that same article you wrote for the article directories can be put in your blog and then submitted to a Blog Directory. Just do a search on Goggle for “Blog Directory” and you should find enough to keep you busy.

OUTBOUND LINKS

An outbound link is a url that you have on your site that points to another website. An outbound link on your site means that you feel the link has quality content for your readers — and you are redirecting them to it from your site.

So, what does outbound linking offer you? You can see what an outbound link can do for another website, right? Well, by carefully linking to other sites– relevant sites — you can increase your own relevancy.

So be careful who you link too — because outbound links figures into the entire ranking algorithm process — or restated — your page ranking.

To conclude, this overview is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to SEO. It’s not an easy task, and it is time-comsuming. Will you see a quick return moneywise. No, but SEO will eventually give you the money you seek, as well as, offer you longevity. And isn’t that what you want–longevity? I know I sure do. I would rather be the tortoise, and not the hare — and slowly, but methodically move in the direction of my dream of a home career. If you take the wrong shortcuts, you can lose your dream and your home career. So, is SEO worth it? I think so. How about you.

In the second and final part of this article I will cover the remaining 5 areas that relate to solid Search Engine Ranks for particular number of key phrases. Again, this will apply to any type of website, on any industry you are targeting.
Lets review the last 5 areas:

Provide a road map of your web site, and search engines will follow it.
Called the “sitemap”, this very simple page contains links to every page on a web site and serves one very important purpose. That is to get your sub pages crawled, and into a search engine’s index.

Search Engines look for the robots.txt file, so make sure you have it.
As its name implies, this is a text file that tells robots what to and what not to index. Its content consists of so-called records. Only mention files and directories that you don’t want to be indexed. All other files will be indexed normally if they are linked on your site. Having a proper robots.txt file gives your pages the rankings they deserve. If search engines know what to do with them, then they can give them good ranking.

Submit your site to related categories in niche directories.
Internet directories have become very important because they represent an easy path for inbound links creation. Now, when you submit your site to related categories in your industry you get that extra link factor, quality. Links from these categories can have a very positive effect on the search engine rankings of your web site.

Writing articles about your site, a great way to get new content.
This will help you get good positioning on search engines and quality incoming links as well. Always keep your articles as informative as possible. Other web sites will link back to your articles if you do. Write about the topics that your visitors are interested in, and dont forget to send them to syndicate sites. They will in turn offer them to others. Just make sure that you always have a link back to your web site so that all sites who publish your article will automatically link to you.

Become an authority in your field. Visit relevant forums and blogs.
Only join forum and blogs that are relevant to your industry. Use your expertise as a site owner in your industry to give information and advice. Of course, put your URL into the signature of your posts. Being the authority is simply knowing your industry, and giving people the information they need to trust you and your site.