Increasing link popularity
Another great search engine optimisation trick is to exchange links with other websites that are related in topic to yours. This won't make a huge difference but will help search engines pick your site up.
Submitting to general purpose directories
On the Internet, many directories contain links to other network resources grouped by topics. The process of adding your site information to them is called submission.
- Such directories can be paid or free of charge, they may require a backlink from your site or they may have no such requirement. The number of visitors to these directories is not large so they will not send a significant number to your site. However, search engines count links from these directories and this may enhance your sites search result placement.
- Important! Only those directories that publish a direct link to your site are worthwhile from a SEO point of view. Script driven directories are almost useless. This point deserves a more detailed explanation. There are two methods for publishing a link. A direct link is published as a standard HTML construction («A href=...», etc.). Alternatively, links can be published with the help of various scripts, redirects and so on. Search engines understand only those links that are specified directly in HTML code. That is why the SEO value of a directory that does not publish a direct link to your site is close to zero.
- You should not submit your site to FFA (free-for-all) directories. Such directories automatically publish links related to any search topic and are ignored by search engines. The only thing an FFA directory entry will give you is an increase in spam sent to your published e-mail address. Actually, this is the main purpose of FFA directories.
- Be wary of promises from various programs and SEO services that submit your resource to hundreds of thousands of search engines and directories. There are no more than a hundred or so genuinely useful directories on the Net - this is the number to take seriously and professional SEO submission services work with this number of directories. If a SEO service promises submissions to enormous numbers of resources, it simply means that the submission database mainly consists of FFA archives and other useless resources.
- Give preference to manual or semiautomatic SEO submission; do not rely completely on automatic processes. Submitting sites under human control is generally much more efficient than fully automatic submission. The value of submitting a site to paid directories or publishing a back-link should be considered individually for each directory. In most cases, it does not make much sense, but there may be exceptions.
- Submitting sites to directories does not often result in a dramatic effect on site traffic, but it slightly increases the visibility of your site for search engines. This useful SEO option is available to everyone and does not require a lot of time and expense so do not overlook it when promoting your website.
DMOZ directory
The DMOZ directory or the Open Directory Project is the largest directory on the Internet. There are many copies of the main DMOZ site and so, if you submit your site to the DMOZ directory, you will get a valuable link from the directory itself as well as dozens of additional links from related resources. This means that the DMOZ directory is of great value a webmaster.
It is not easy to get your site into the DMOZ directory; there is an element of luck involved. Your site may appear in the directory a few minutes after it has been submitted or it may take months to appear.
If you submitted your site details correctly and in the appropriate category then it should eventually appear. If it does not appear after a reasonable time then you can try contacting the editor of your category with a question about your request (the DMOZ site gives you such opportunity). Of course, there are no guarantees, but it may help. DMOZ directory submissions are free of charge for all sites, including commercial ones.
Recommendations regarding site submissions to DMOZ: Read all site requirements, descriptions, etc. to avoid violating the submission rules. Such a violation will most likely result in a refusal to consider your request. Please remember, presence in the DMOZ directory is desirable, but not obligatory. Do not despair if you fail to get into this directory. It is possible to reach top positions in search results without this directory - many sites do.
Link exchange
The essence of link exchanges is that you use a special page to publish links to other sites and get similar back-links from them. Search engines do not like link exchanges because, in many cases, they distort search results and do not provide anything useful to Internet users. However, it is still an effective way to increase link popularity if you observe several simple rules:
- Exchange links with sites that are related by topic. Exchanging links with unrelated sites is ineffective and unpopular.
- Before exchanging, make sure that your link will be published on a "good" page. This means that the page must have a reasonable PageRank (3-4 or higher is recommended), it must be available for indexing by search engines, the link must be direct, the total number of links on the page must not exceed 50, and so on.
- Do not create large link directories on your site. The idea of such a directory seems attractive because it gives you an opportunity to exchange links with many sites on various topics. You will have a topic category for each listed site. However, when trying to optimise your site you are looking for link quality rather than quantity and there are some potential pitfalls. No SEO aware webmaster will publish a quality link to you if he receives a worthless link from your directory "link farm" in return. Generally, the PageRank of pages from such directories leaves a lot to be desired. In addition, search engines do not like these directories at all. There have even been cases where sites were banned for using such directories.
- Use a separate page on the site for link exchanges. It must have a reasonable PageRank and it must be indexed by search engines, etc. Do not publish more than 50 links on one page (otherwise search engines may fail to take some of the links into account). This will help you to find other SEO aware partners for link exchanges.
- Search engines try to track mutual links. That is why you should, if possible, publish back-links on a domain/site other than the one you are trying to promote. The best variant is when you promote the resource site1.com and publish back-links on the resource site2.com.
- Exchange links with caution. Webmasters who are not quite honest will often remove your links from their resources after a while. Check your back-links from time to time.
Press releases, news feeds, forums, thematic resources
This section is about site marketing rather than pure SEO. There are many information resources and news feeds that publish press releases and news on various topics. Such sites can supply you with direct visitors and also increase your sites popularity. If you do not find it easy to create a press release or a piece of news, hire copywriters - they will help you find or create something newsworthy.
Look for resources that deal with similar topics to your own site (like forums). You may find many websites that not in direct competition with you, but which share the same topic as your site. Try to approach the site owners. It is quite possible that they will be glad to publish information about your project.
One final tip for obtaining inbound links - try to create slight variations in the inbound link text. If all inbound links to your site have exactly the same link text and there are many of them, the search engines may flag it as a spam attempt and penalise your site.