Bill McRea

Not two weeks ago I had a chat with someone (an SEO) about some online media buying and although the figures made an infinite amount of sense (6 figure monthly page views – prime location banner purchase for less than £90 per month!), he said, “but there is no SEO value from the banner link” (it was JavaScript)! Astonished, I spent the next hour arguing the case for buying the coverage, but it would seem that the majority of SEOs just don’t see the value of applying traditional marketing techniques to the web – they just don’t “fit” into the SEO mindset.

What is really bizarre though is that while the optimisation industry doesn’t see the value in some less search engine focused marketing techniques, they will pay a veritable fortune for paid links. The likes of ReviewMe (http://www.reviewme.com) change up to $250 for a single “review” (which is SEO speak for a plain text link not so subtly hidden in a purpose written article). One text link. One! Not just that, but a single text link on a new page that has no PR (and will maybe only will ever receive minimal PR filtered through from other page links)!

For that $250 (around £150) there are so many different options you could aim for. While a lot won’t have any direct SEO benefit, we still need to consider traffic and branding benefits.

$250 would allow me to buy banner advertising on a niche site / forum / blog for a limited amount of time. Depending on the type of site and its subject area you could be looking at a decent amount of traffic, enquiries and exposure – certainly enough to justify the cost.

An alternative would be to spend the money on a directory listing on a site such as TheBestOf (http://www.thebestof.co.uk) – £10 per month for a year and you get a full page listing (written by your local contact), an audio advert where you can pitch your service, inclusion in a high traffic site and a direct (SEO friendly!) link back to your site. A link AND qualified traffic – that’s like SEO Christmas!

Online marketing professionals do focus on SEO a lot and that isn’t a bad thing – it just isn’t the only thing and you should be looking to spend your budget wisely and spread your marketing scope.

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Directories will always be around, the future for directories will change as the internet changes, they will need to adapt and additional services. The third important factor in directory submission is making sure you use the correct title, keywords, and descriptions in the right category. Once Your site is included in a directory the listing is permanent and you will receive traffic everyday.

Despite customer resistance, eventually the message will get through that submission is not necessary. Search engines use directories to check the value of websites, remember directories are human edited and these directories add check for the search engines, one of the most popular directories that most search engines check with is dmoz. Submitting to directories is overlooked because it is so time consuming and it has to be done manually to be done right, but it is a great search engine optimization strategy.

Each listing carries a brief summary of the content contained within. Links in directories are free, paid, or free but need a reciprocal link. A directory is a compilation of links that are organized in a way to make it easy to search on. Sometimes, you search for something in the directory and you don’t find it, not because it is not there but because the directory search script just doesn’t cut it.

If you decide to pay for a directory listing make sure the directory has a good page rank and has a proven traffic record, this way you know that the money you spent is well worth it. Many directories offer free directory submissions. Paid and free are the most common form of directory model. A one way links or a link exchange is considered a free link. Search engines like to see a site updated regularly, and maintaining the directory will assure that all the links are still functional and that all the URLs still exist.

Many sites are rejected due to inappropriate descriptions. The description is the most difficult item to define correctly. One way to get help for an accurate description is to ask friends to view your website or ask people from forums to view your site. A description is not an advertisement and should never contain superlatives or excessive marketing hype. When writing your description you are not writing it to sell your product you need to write it showing the benefit of your product, no hard sell in the description.

When using directory submissions you will see an increase in links and traffic to your site. These are great methods of driving traffic to your site. The main thing you want for your website is targeted traffic and traffic that converts into sales.

When using a directory submission service make sure you find a service that will continually add your sites links to directories even after the initial submission. By paying one price for the initial submission and never having to pay again for additional submissions to directories is what you want.

The reasons for this are simple, submitting to directories is long monotonous process, it is easier to pay a flat rate and have someone else do it for you. When choosing the service make sure you can enter more than one title, description, categories and keywords. The reason for this is that you want to rotate the title and description among the directories. Make sure you receive a submission report and snapshots of the submissions. If you don’t receive emails from the directory owners this is a good indication that your site is not really being submitted.

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