Feb 04 2010
How to Build Free Back Links Using Directories
I have been optimizing websites since 2001 and since that time a lot of things have changed. When I first entered the industry all a site really needed was using their text correctly in the meta tags and body content and maybe a few links. Now a days it is much more complicated…
While it is still important to use develop a good keyword list, create unique content, and properly optimize meta information there is a much larger focus on building back links. Back links are any site that links to your site from their site.
Why are back links so important?
While this may not seem obvious to the casual search engine user the logic is actually very simple. It’s impossible to quickly build hundreds of quality back links to your site. While anyone can optimize their meta tags, title tags, or even body copy there is no quick way to get links from other sites to yours. Of course there are a lot of spam techniques (spamming blogs, reciprocal link building, bogus comments on guest books) search engines are constantly developing algorithms to catch these black hat techniques and If caught – you could face heavily penalization or evening being completely banned from search engine results.
How can you build back links without being banned?
This is the $20,000 question and what separates one SEO company from the next. Building back links is by far the most difficult task for any site to undertake that is attempting to increase traffic and search engine rankings. Below I will touch on the easiest natural way to increase your site’s back links naturally in your spare time.
Directories: The first thing a new site should do to increase back links is find directories it should be listed in and submit their site. I typically find these sites in two stages – Geo-targeted and industry specific.
Types of directories – And how to find them:
Geo-Targeted Directories – These are geo-specific directories that list businesses in a specific area and are very easy to find. You can do a quick in Google for your city and the phrase “business directory” or “business listings” .
Example search queries:
Pittsburgh Business Directory
Pennsylvania Business Listings
Having trouble finding geo-targeted directories? Here is a free Pittsburgh directory you can get listed in at no cost:
http://pittsburghpromotion.com/
Industry Specific Directories – These are directories that are meant to list businesses in a specific industry not by location. Many of these directories are used to give users an idea of all the companies in their industry which can help not only back links but may refer some quality traffic as well. To find these directories all you need to do is search your industry and the words “directory” or resource list.
Example search queries:
Web Design Directory
Software Developer Resource List
Having trouble finding industry specific targeted directories? Here is a free Pittsburgh directory you can get listed in at no cost:
Note: Never pay to be listed in ANY directory– if a site is trying to charge to be listed stay far away. Only submit to free directories that want to link to you because they feel it’s a value to their visitors not for profit…
While this is just one way to naturally build back links there are literally dozens of techniques you can use to increase back links ethically. Do you want to find out how many back links your site has? You can use a free SEO analysis tool developed by Eyeflow Internet Marketing that will tell you how many back links your site has coming in as well as 11 other key factors that search engines look at.
If you have any questions please feel free to post in the comments and I will try my best to answer in a timely fashion.
The article was written by Phil Laboon CEO of Eyeflow Internet Marketing. A Pittsburgh based search engine optimization company.
3 Responses to “How to Build Free Back Links Using Directories”
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I would agree with your take on back-linking, geo targets, and even industry specific directory’s… however, saying “never pay for a directory listing” is in my opinion a ‘heavy limitation’ for serious quick SEO. consider these if you will:
best of the web directory
http://www.botw.com
+ page rank 6 since 1996
cost = 299.99 per year
http://www.business.com
+ page rank 7 since 1998
cost = 299.99 per year
http://www.yahoo.com
+ page rank 8 since 1995
cost = 299.99 per year
the DMOZ boasts a rank of 8 for free, but not everyone is accepted. DMOZ traffic is at 900k compared to Yahoo’s whopping 2.2mil.
Free directory’s are great, but many are completely worthless. some even going so far as to use rel=’nofollow’… the same rings true with PR sites, with a little research you get what you pay for, for example I would never recommend ‘uncoverthenet’ directory with a page rank of 0, traffic of 69k, for a $159, worse than worthless. Of course, thats the point of hiring a pro to do the leg work and submit to all the valuable free ones, but also find the few worth paying for…
Christian, I have am not a fan of buying links mainly because Google is very against any site selling links. Even though those sites are old and established and have decent PR on their pages I’m sure Google is not passing anything through them. For $900 for 3 links for 1 year to me is just not worth it and we have done many many tests over the years testing the impact links like these have on SERPs.
Here is a link to Matt Cutt’s Blog where he tells you how to report any site selling links:
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/how-to-report-paid-links/
When asked about Google’s stance on paid links Matt Cutts had alot to say. Here is a great excerpt:
“…link sellers can lose trust, such as their ability to flow PageRank/anchortext. Also, we’re open to semi-automatic approaches to ignore paid links, which could include the best of algorithmic and manual approaches…”
Here are a few examples types of links we build for some of our clients in the education field:
http://www.cde.ca.gov/re/sd/
http://www.ode.state.or.us/search/results/?id=227
http://dese.mo.gov/directory/
Links from anyone of these sources carries much more weight with search engines then any paid directory (from my expeirence)
Christian,
With DMOZ, you can often get sites listed by submitting them once per month until they are finally reviewed & accepted. Many people don’t realize that it often takes up to a month for the reviewer to get around to reviewing each submission. Also, your submission can get moved “to the back of the line” (so to speak) if you submit the same URL to DMOZ more than once in a 30 day period.
Phil,
What are your thoughts on the above? Have you noticed the same with your DMOZ submissions?