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Industrial Directory Listings – Are They Worth It

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Part of our external link building today includes industrial directory submissions to a few relevant sites. So what are industrial directories and how can they help in the external SEO picture.

First of all, it is worth mentioning that most general directories are not worth bothering with. Please don’t be taken in by SEO companies who promise submissions to thousands of directories and sites to build you links. First of all, most of the directories they will find will probably not be in your area of industry and secondly they are usually sites which have no value to visitors or search engines. Therefore, your time is wasted here.

One thing we like to do is go through a simple and quick process for industrial directory submissions and then leave it well alone. If you find a few in your niche then great, but don’t spend an age submitting your site to loads of directories – I am sure you can spend your time on more profitable tasks. But if you’d like to get listed on several sites within your industry sector, here is one way to find them. Just type in “add url” + “engineering directory” into google and you’ll see results for all sites that accept your url in an engineering classification. You can alter the search to be more specific and exchange the “add url” part to “add link” or “add websites” you can then look through the results to find the best directories. Of course, you would use relevant keywords and phrases for your niche or industry type, so if you were in the scientific industry (let’s say in chromatography) you would type in “add url” + “chromatography directory”

Just make sure that you don’t spend a huge amount of time on this. If you find a few directories in your niche with just a few other links on the page then why not add your link to them. Remember, adding your link to a page with hundreds of other links is going to dilute any page rank value to your site. Getting on a page with one or two other links is ideal. Also do a page rank check in the google toolbar to see the rank of that page. This will tell you how important this page is (in the eye’s of google anyway) and the higher the rank, the better it is. Again, don’t be totally ruled by this ‘page rank’ business, either for directories or for getting links from other sites. Just because a site page shows a page rank of 2 does not mean it is of less value than one with a page rank of 5.

This depends very much on how many links are on the page and also how relevant that directory or website is to your particular niche. So, a directory in your marketplace with a page rank of 2 or 3 is probably better than one in a general directory with a page rank of 5 or 6. Don’t be taken in by companies offering you links on sites, as most of them are useless and crammed full of other links.

Finally, there are one or two directories to consider if you want to improve your rankings a bit. The first one is the yahoo directory (currently $299 per year) and then there is dmoz which is a free directory from google. Both are worth getting into but don’t get obsessed with getting into either. The dmoz directory can be difficult to get into because it is run by humans (and quite rightly so) but this can mean huge waiting times for approving entries. The yahoo directory is a nice to have option but you might find that a $299 press release service through PR web or PR newswire will be a better use of your time and money.

SEO Friendly Directories

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SEO friendly directoriesWhat is an SEO friendly directory? Our understanding of it is one that is well respected and has some authority, value and decent credibility with visitors and in the eye’s of the search engines.

One thing to mention right from the start is that a lot of directories are not going to give you a quick SEO fix when it comes to building good external links. Of course, getting links coming back to your site from reputable and related sources is one of the biggest ranking factors – a vote of trust if you will. So, to do this right, I’d suggest that you concentrate on a handful of general directories and probably two or three very good ones in your niche. So, which ones work?

Well, the most popular general directories are dmoz at www.dmoz.org and the Yahoo directory at http://dir.yahoo.com/ dmoz is a google directory and is the largest run by real human beings (now there’s a thing) dmoz is worth being on but don’t get obsessed about it! There is no way of adding anchor text links to a main ‘keyword/phrase’ optimised page on your site unless your site name is also the keyword. This is because the title of your entry (or site name) will be the live link. We have a listing on dmoz for labface at www.labface.com and the live link is labface shown here As you can see there isn’t a lot of information here but they want to keep it short, clean and concise. You may end up waiting an age for your listing to be approved but resist the temptation to add the same entry when you get impatient – this will just give the associated editor an excuse to put you in the ‘add next year’ folder.

One thing to bear in mind here is that you MUST add your entry to the most relevant/targeted category you can. If it is obvious to the editor that you have chosen the wrong category, you’ll probably go in that folder again. So, do a bit of research and find out where any competitors are listed. If your business is a very close match to them, then add your entry to that category.

The Yahoo directory is worth doing if you feel that $299 a year is worth it. I would say this is a small price to pay for a decent link on a high authority directory, but it will only make a small contribution to your traffic and ranking. It is worth knowing that this directory will not be classed as a paid link and therefore carries no penalty from google or any other search engine. You may know that paid links are usually frowned upon but the Yahoo directory has quite a strict approval policy, as well as an aged domain and very high page rank of 9. It is therefore seen as a site with high authority, credibility and business ethic.

 

Other directories to choose are those in your particular niche. In fact, 3 or 4 links on high authority directories in your area of expertise will be worth far more to you than any general directory. Just do a search and find those directories with a good variety of links. Try to get a link on a page with as few other links as possible, as this will pass on a higher rank to your own pages. This is because link value is diluted proportionally based on the number of links on a page, so it is always better to get your link on a page with fewer links as well as one with a high individual page rank.

So, directories are worth doing, but only some of them will be classed as SEO friendly directories. Do a bit of research but do not dedicate too much of your time in this area.