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Day 29 - Part II - Directory Submissions
By Mike Mindel | August 29, 2007
This content is summarized from Day 29 Training - Directory Submissions for the Thirty Day Challenge, presented by Rob Somerville.
Directory Submissions Means More Backlinks
Directory submission is another backlink building strategy. Online there are a large number of directories whose sole purpose in life is to provide links to websites based on certain subject areas.
The two most dominant directories are DMOZ and Yahoo. But there are a very large number of other directories of varying page rank where you can submit your website for the purpose of generating backlinks.
Manual or Automatic
The best way is to outsource it or use software. But if you were going to do this manually then go to http://addurl.nu created by Jim Westergren, a very well known SEO expert.
Jim has compiled a list of websites (several hundred in fact) which are
directories where you can submit your website for the purpose of
getting a link.
They All Work the Same Way
If we were to click through to the InfoListing Directory which is a page rank 6 directory
You can see that the directory is broken down by subject areas. I couldn’t find one that was perfectly suited to ’speed reading’. But if we click through to the ‘Home/Family’ page we can see that there are 246 home and family page submission at this stage.
If we want to place a link in this directory and this particular sub-folder we would click on the add a site link
The sort of information they require from you is pretty much always the same. Some of the directories do allow free submission and if you pay, you get submitted faster. But in this case we’re going to use the free submission.
Directory Submission
I would add my url to my web page here. A title which incorporates your keyword you are trying to optimize for
A brief description up to 25-30 words with some minimum requirements. Try and incorporate your email into the description.
Then your email address and your submission type and finally your agreement to the terms of submission
The site would almost certainly send an email to the email address you provided here. You may need to activate the link before they add it to the list of sites to be spidered.
Directory submission is the only type of large scale link building activity where you can do many submissions in a short space of time e.g. 50 in a day. Largely because it will take sometime before the directory will get round to spider your site and include that site in the directory.
What generally happens is you get a larger number of positions in a short space of time andthen they start to drip in as your page makes its way through some of the slower submission processes.
IMWishlist - Directory Submitter
The free tool that I recommend is by Brad Callen. Over at IMWishlist.com there is a Directory Submitter and an Article Submitter.
The Directory Submitter has a free version and a paid version. But they both have exactly the same functionality and make it easier to submit to the free directories. You pre-populate the software the details of the site you are going to submit then the software pre-populates those fields on the directories. You pick the category you want the submission to go into and then click submit. The software automatically submits them.
The difference between the free version and the paid version is that the free one has 200 - 300 directories and the paid version has over 2000 directory links in its database.
There is also free Article Submitter software that works on the same principle. The free version allows you to submit to 200 directories and the paid version to over 660 article directories worldwide.
I’ve (Rob) used these products, particularly the Directory Submitter. It’s very good and allows you to get through the tedious process of directory submission automatically.
There are also paid services online where you can get someone to submit the articles for you. Back at addurl.nu you can pay for submission
But you don’t need to do that if you don’t want to. Either way, I recommend you do consider as one of your link building strategies going forwards.
Free RSS Submit
If your hosting platform is sitting on a blog or you have an RSS feed to your content then there are also RSS directories that you can submit your feed to. I wouldn’t recommend you do this manually. There is some free software called RSS submit
The software is called RSS Submit Pro which allows you to put information about your feed address, title and so on. It will then submit your RSS feed to a bunch of RSS directories which will bring you links over time. (Note: PC software only). It does the job reasonably well with the added advantage of being free.
Directory submissions means more backlinks for your content.
Some More Article Directories
Income Hero provides a huge list of 263 article directories sorted by Page Rank.
Technorati Tags: day 29 training, directory submissions, thirty day challenge, rob somerville, more backlinks, dmoz, yahoo, manual or automatic, addurl.nu, jim westergren, infoslistings directory, imwishlist, directory submitter, article submitter, brad callen, free rss submit,
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Topics: Daily Summaries |
August 30th, 2007 at 1:02 am
Dan did a great job of presenting all the ways to get links. A tedious, but vital process. We just have to chip away at it because we want it to be natural growth. Those directories may take months anyway.
Thanks again for the notes with pictures.
For Clean Water Everywhere,
Richard (alias Bluerunner)
August 30th, 2007 at 2:18 am
It was Rob actually. Rob Somerville who presented this info.
-Mike
August 30th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
Here is a thread about my views on directory submissions.
P.S. The Cialdini book is golden.