Entries Tagged 'Link Building' ↓

As Many SEO’s out there including myself try to use every tool in the chest in order to give our clients/employers the best back link profile. For many years there has been a number of ‘top SEO directory’ lists that quote many sites as being the best in class for providing listings that help improve your Google search position. In recent years directory owners have noticed that there’s a great potential revenue stream for paid directory submissions, possibly as they see paid submission as a way of telling Google that their site is a growing concern and a serious business as opposed to the many rubbish directories that popped into existence back in the 00′s as a way of building a pseudo-authoritative site on a particular niche.

I thought it would be beneficial to put some of these rock star directories through my basic back link qualification process to see if any of the big names actually deliver on their promises. As a caveat I’d like to point that this research was conducted to determine a directories benefit to organic search placement and does not in any way reflect the traffic driving capabilities of such directories. In addition I’d like to point out that I’ve picked the ‘best’ category for my listing, this being the one that most accurately reflects the target sites content (in this case furniture/living room furniture/sofas etc)

Key

dR

Domain Rank (Via OpenSiteExplorer)

IBL

In Bound Links – The number of unique domains linking to the sites home page

pR

Googles PageRank

pR: N/A

No PageRank i.e. Grey Bar

OBL

Out Bound Links from this page

Data

Analysis

The key to this research is whether the page on which your listing is places is indexed by Google and has any PageRank to pass onto your site. As you can see in a vast majority of cases this is what lets these sites down. Of course you could attempt to ‘game’ the directory owners into putting your link onto a less relevant page (in this case it could be antiques/antique furniture etc) and a pR search using the SEOChat tool will certainly show you what pages have the highest PageRank for this purpose.

So what’s my advice? Firstly to Directory owners, it’s no good saying your a pR9 directory if you’re listings pages aren’t in the Google index. So work through your sites to ensure each page has adequate content and reduce the number of links off a page i.e. think more about your category structure. For SEOs and Directory submitters, don’t waste your time or money on directories that aren’t passing juice.

And finally. I know the Google toolbars measure of PageRank is not a great indicator however is it is the standard rule of thumb and as this is a quick guide, it should serve most peoples purpose.

Always keen to verify my own theories, I used my SEOMoz pro account to ask what metrics the SEOMoz team advise to use to determine the best possible source for links in a link building campaign using Open Site Explorer as the key data source. The reply was to use DA (Domain Authority) as the key indicator tho’ I had to be wary of Directories which may appear to be ranked highly without providing any real benefit.

Digging a little deeper, I’ve also noticed that when using this approach, Open Site Explorer also favours any sub-domain driven sites i.e. sub-domained blog URL’s and other such sites with the echelons of DA ranked sites being made up of these sites.

So what does this mean to the lay SEO? Well it means that unless you’re prepared to wade through tens of thousands of results, there’s still not short-cut to finding great quality links.

Heres how I get started in sourcing links from our competitors listings.

1. Use Open site explorer to download CSV’s of all EXTERNAL links that are dofollow/301 from a big ass list of competitors domains
2. Combine all of these CSV’s into one document
3. Clean the list using the DATA > Remove duplicates filter in the source URL only
4. Sort by Page Authority
5. Highlight all PA on domains with a PA over 50
6. Sort by Domain Authority
7. Highlight all DA on domains with a DA over 50
8. Sort by External Links
9. Highlight by External Links over 100
10. On a page by page basis quickly scan the list removing RSS feeds and other uninfluencable links
11. Add a column for PageRank
12. Go through each listing adding the PR for each site (n/a for grey bars)
13. Build links where possible.

Since Open Site Explorer has an API, has anyone thought about automating this process as i’d pay for a tool that did this and more as it would save me HOURS!

Another things thats not new, however it is now linked from the standard Google AdWords Keyword Tool (https://adwords.google.co.uk/select/KeywordToolExternal).

Note this doesn’t appear to work in Chrome!

New Google Keyword Tool

So what’s new here?

Overall the tool feels more intuitive and I get a better sense as to how the options relate to the data. Things like filtering Exact Match terms has moved to the bottom left of the screen, trend information is shown to the right of the keyword lists and additional filters allowing you to delve closer into a niche are provided.

It says you get more information if you log into adwords, however it doesnt really show the organic search specialist anything worthwhile.

Give it a try.

Redfly Marketing have announced an update to their Google Global Toolbar for Firefox. This great little tool enables you to quickly and easily view Google results in different countries which when combined with standard link building tools should help you to source new link goodness in foreign languages.

Njoy

Theres a cheeky post on Digitalpoint that states by using identi.ca and its sister sites you can automate the re-posting of 100s of links back to your blogs from all over the world.

Aside from generating new links to new blog posts which is all good and well, the post also splits the target sites by country and if you’re into multilingual link dveelopment then this is sure to be a quick win!

Of course, the only ballache is signing up for all of the accounts.

Good Post!

Welcome to my big ass social bookmarking list. Can I open this content by firstly saying… I NEED YOUR HELP TO VALIDATE THIS INFORMATION. The aim of this page is to get your asisstance in validating the information below, adding the qualifying information for each bookmarking site (PageRank, MozRank, Alexa Rank, Do Follow, Link Type [Anchor Text or Url], Notes, Country of Origin and Niche). This list of open for additions and removals and all information is welcomed. If you plan on requesting an addition, please send all of the qualifying information with your submission and an example of a dofollow link in action i.e. a profile page or post. If you’re interested in helping out simply pick a site, sign up, note down the metrics and email the results to markrush@gmail.com. Any nofollow links can still be useful to help associate your brand with keywords through citation (mentioning your brand name in the pages text) so dont discount these as they are useful. Continue reading →

Heres a quick tip for you, when searching for directories to submit to think about the following:

1. If you sell sofas instead of submitting to shopping>home>lounge consider >shopping>antiques and collectables as chances are theres fewer out bound links from that page i.e. think latterally and source a related folder with fewest outbound links – Googles search suggestion tool will help you identify the appropriate latteral terms.
2. Look at MozRank instead of PageRank as PR is all whack at the moment (how down with the kids am I lol).
3. Take advantage of the description box and max it out as it will increase the pages relevancy to your term (this works even better if you’re submitting multiple micro/feeder sites to the same directory location).
4. Dont spam the title box.
5. Dont bother with Meta information, its not used often.
6. If you can add an article to a category do the same with a good title and looooong description.
7. Try and adapt your link title to match the folder’s name i.e. a category about Furniture has my link with the anchor “Antique Furniture Sofa and Chairs”

Enjoy!

I’m now into my second year at Distinctive Chesterfields/Click 4 Beds and I’ve just realised that I’m now chasing my own performance from last year… in effect I have a ghost car to race against just like in a game where last years performances are now being used as a benchmark for this year…

Love it!

Ends 28th February 2010 this BOTW promo code entitles you to a massive 50% off your submission.

Simply enter the voucher code:

YOUSAVE50

At the payment page.

This works on both the business directory listing and the blog directory.

If that doesn’t work try

NEWYR

This one gives you 20% off.

I’m in the process of thinking of ways to build links to a site that sells globally. A big part of this is building links from foreign language sites so as a first step I’ve chosen to repeat my past experiments in social bookmarking using sites that are specifically geared towards specific languages.

As always I’m interested in your feedback so if you have any sites to add IN THIS SPECIFIC LANGUAGE ONLY then please add a comment and I’ll review the site and add it in if applicable.

List of Italian Social Bookmarking Sites

Process

Firstly, the Google toolbar with its translate function is your best guide to doing this.

1. Visit google.it
2. Check the radio button that says Italian Results Only
3. Perform searches like ‘social bookmarks’ or ‘social bookmarking’
4. Make a list
5. Visit each site
6. Register using your keyword as a username
7. Validate
8. Complete your profiles including a large descriptive text with keywords dropped into it
9. Look around the site for blog posting or article submission possibilityes
10. Add your articles swapping out the english keywords for your native language ones
11. Keep a log of dofollows etc
12. If you encounter any dofollow Delicious style social bookmarking services and bookmark your native language pages (dont forget to update these as you go along)

Thanks all -Enjoy. And if you know of any other good dofollow foreign language specific social bookmarking sites then please let me know.