February 2, 2008

How to Get One Way Links - Link Directories

Good one-way links, as I've said many times before, are key to good search engine rankings. Google is getting smarter and smarter, and has started to discount two-way link exchanges. So unless you're going to be getting direct traffic from a link exchange, don't spend much time on the "If you link to me, I'll link to you" strategy.

One great way to build your one-way link count is with link directories. People make sites who's purpose is to give out links to other sites. They are generally called 'link directories'. One of the great things about these types of sites is that they provide easy one-way links, and if you find high Page Rank directories, then they will be passing that authority on to your site.

Submitting sites to Link Directories can be very, very time consuming. But once you get the knack, you can buzz through a list of directories. You'd be surprised at how hard it can be to find out how to submit your site on any given link directory. I'll try to ease you some pain and frustration in this post.

First of all, you're probably looking for one of three text links.

'submit site/URL'
'suggest site/URL'
'add a site/URL'

There are other variants that you'll come across every now and then. So the trick is finding where the button lies on the page. Many times, there will be a button and the very bottom of the page, along with some other links. For example:

add site bottom of page.png

Other times, it will be grouped in a navigation bar at the top. For example:

add URL example.png

and

add site example.png

And then other times, it will be at some random point in the page.

Sometimes you won't find an option to submit until you go looking through the directory. Because of this, I've made it a habit to go to the most relevant category within the directory before trying to submit. This also saves time in finding a category manually when submitting. If you go to a category and hit then submit your site, most of the time it will automatically fill in the category for you, so you don't have to look through a long and unclear drop-down menu.

It's also helpful to keep a text editor up while you're going through the sites. I use notepad (when I'm on a windows) and textedit (when I'm on a mac). There are a few things you should keep in your text editor, separated by paragraph breaks.

-Your email address
-Your full URL
-A 1 to 3 sentence description of your site
-Your full name (you can make up a false identity to use if you want)
-The title of your site
-A few keywords and keyword phrases seperated by commas

If you do this, it makes going through a list of directories much easier, because you can just copy and paste the answers to questions into the appropriate boxes. You won't need all the above categories for all sites, and some sites will require more info. You can adjust what you put into the text editor to your needs.

Finally, two words of advice. First, do yourself a favor and don't pay for listings in directories. It won't do you any good (unless it gives you a lot of traffic, which is highly unlikely). There are plenty of high-PR directories out there that take free submissions. Here's a site with a list of some authoritative directories you can start working through (only do the free ones).

Strongest Links

And Second, don't do reciprocal linking. It's not worth your time. Google doesn't count those anymore, and chances are you won't get any direct traffic. It's a waste of time. Anyhow, who wants to junk up their site with a list of links to spammy link directories?

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February 2, 2008