Link building basics - Getting started with directory submissions

With link building taking more and more prominence in your website's search engines rankings (around 60 to 70% depending on sources), getting your link building strategy right is crucial for successful SEO.

While there is huge emphasis being put on social links at the moment, the basics of link building still apply and "old" techniques such as directory submissions still bring benefits, not only in terms of rankings but also in terms of traffic and brand awareness.

Where to start?

A simple search in google for free online directories will bring a lot of results (49.7 millions to be precise!). So as a business, which directories should you get registered on? Well as with everything in link building, quality is not always better than quantity so check the pagerank of the directories you're considering. And choose the most popular directories to start with as they will get more visitors and increase your chances of getting traffic through.

A FREE link? what's the catch?

Many online directories claiming to be free will actually often request some sort of approval/review fee or a reciprocal link to their site. Unless you're wealthy or willing to dilute your own website popularity by adding external links, I'd steer away from these.
But among all of the directories, some will give you a free link and some will even allow you to create a very comprehensive profile which will hopefully help you drive traffic to your site as well as support your SEO efforts.

Selected online directories (UK)

Below are some of the directories you should consider when starting your link building activities:

• Dmoz.org (PR 8) - dmoz has been running for ages and used to provide results to many search engines, but still worthwhile nowadays. Register in more than 1 category for maximum impact
• ThomsonLocal (PR 7) - the online version of the popular paper directory
• Yell (PR 7) - online version of the yellow pages, ideal for local searches
• Yelp (PR 5) - Review site for local businesses. If your business is good, be on it. Good reviews matter
• FreeIndex (PR 5) - a very complete online directory with detailed business profiles
• Qype (PR 5) - a localised review/sharing website with complete business profiles

This is by no means a comprehensive list and it is recommended to regularly add your website to directories to help your SEO.

Feel free to contact me if you have specific link building needs and I'll be happy to help.