Best of the Web

One of the oldest and most established directories available is Best of the Web! They also have their Best of the Web blog directory which is also one of the largest blog directories on the web, and offers you both a enhanced visibility in Google/Bing but an increase in the potential number of RSS feed subscribers. You can signup to the BOTW blog directory here but I recommend the one-time charge for the BOTW Blog directory submission as annual recurring charges can add up quickly.

Since BOTW has been around for so long and attracts so much traffic they also offer a BOTW category sponsorship product which offers you premier placement in your relevant category with not more than 3 ad spots per category. They also offer a free 30-Day Trial of their BOTW Sponsorship product which I recommend trialling and you can check it out here.

General Web Directories
Directory Journal is also a very high quality web directory that vets any submissions to ensure that it’s quality guidelines are maintained and sets a bare minimum submission guideline to weed out the crap and low quality sites. The don’t accept websites focused on adult topics, warez, racism and pornographic content. They have two primary listings one for regular and one for featured listings depending on your budget and how many links you are looking to build from a single directory.

I recommend the one-time charge for the Directory Journal Permanent Listing plans as annual recurring charges can add up quickly, you can check them out here.

Directory Submissions

There are a number of alternatives if you have a larger number of sites to deal with an ongoing SEO link building project with smaller budgets some solutions include services like directory maximizer.  Their service works with a number of small niche websites and directories and might be worthwhile as a small part of your overall link building project. Their service is different as they act on your behalf and submit to a number of directories you specified based on a board guide, so they may slightly faster but not as targeted as using Directory Journal or BOTW.  The upside of their services is that they do also offer a free ebook on guidelines and tips for SEO Directories you can download and learn from and do the process yourself.

Balance and common sense required

The biggest point around link building is that a high level of common sense and balance is required if your campaign is to be successful long term, there are no quick wins that last forever and also Google/Bing algorithms change everyday so what might work now may not be of any use next month.  It’s good to balance everything and don’t rely on a single channel for all your SEO activities as you might be find you are left out in the cold if one of those channels shuts down or stops working.  So go out check out some of the resources I have provided and be creative in your SEO campaigns beyond just directory submissions.

How to effective check site quality?
One of the biggest mistakes in link building is to acquire a link for the sake of acquiring a link, it’s not a numbers game it’s a quality focus.  This beginner mistake of just getting links for the sake of links can be avoiding if enough time is allocated to a project and client’s are resonable about expectations on velocity of link acquisitions. Growing your backlink profile too fast with low quality links can hurt your long term aspirations but also mean that quick wins are the only type of deliverable you will receive. One of the many tools to quickly sort the crap links from the quality partnerships is to perform a quick ranking check to analyze the value of a URL but also how strongly that URL is already ranked within Google. This gets complicated when you are dealing with multiple languages as what might be a high score in a French website might not be applicable when comparing against a English website, cross language link building is always difficult.  It can be very easy to pick up cheap and low quality links from foreign websites but the quality factors are often missing and you don’t have any real control over what other types of sites they might link to or what content they might be hosting.

There are also a number of tools like SEMRush that allow you to get a quick report on a competitor like Amazon.com, and you can see an overview of their organic keywords, any paid campaigns running along with estimates on how much you have to spend to get the same number of visitors, who are their competitors and even potential buyers/sellers of ads for monetisation/partnerships.  You can also look to platforms like RavenTools, OpenSiteExplorer or MajesticSEO to gauge the quality of a website but this can be very time consuming if done manually for each and every link your plan on acquiring.

To buy or lease backlinks?
One of the big issues with AdWords is that many clients see it as an open cheque book they are always paying every month, but SEO done badly or in competitive industries can be just as expensive. Leasing backlinks can be a compounding problem as your need to keep pay more each month as you grow your backlink portfolio as you continue to play catchup with your competitors. A far better solution is to buy back links as part of a longer term agreement or partnership between your sites. If you swap your backlinks in and out each month this can potentially send signals to Google that something might be up with your link building process and will likely flag your website for an inspection by their quality team.

A far better strategy is to look at long term partnerships or one off agreements that mean you are not renting links for short-term gain but rather looking at a long term partnership with relevant websites and directories.  You can certainly look at following Google/Bing guidelines when acquiring links and a number of websites will ensure any sponsored/promoted links are nofollowed to reduce the influence on rankings, you should always be looking to acquire links that drive actual real traffic and visitors.  Focusing purely on links from an SEO perspective can be short sighted so focus on what might be more expensive and better quality links can ensure that you get sales/visitors from the link not just a bump in your rankings. If you are acquiring links you want to ensure they are on quality websites will continue to drive visitors for a long period of time.

Again you can look at SEM Rush reports to get a gauge on how much you should be allocating for a link building campaign and think long term not short term and use a platform like Scribe to measure and improve your website content to get the biggest bang for your buck. Look at established competitors they focus on long term and don’t lease backlinks for a few months, they look at securing these links forever if they can.

What is the biggest failure in link building?
One of the biggest failures in link building is not matching the client’s budget and resources to the task ahead. You need to consider outsourcing link building if you don’t have the internal expertise or experience doing it for a large scale project. You need to take a whole bunch of external factors into consideration before jumping into the deep-end if you want your link building activities to succeed. A large reason for a failure in link building is tied to a poorly structured link building campaign and a failure to match the link building activities to relevant content within your website. There is no valid reason why you should be building links for “example topic” if there is not real content within your website that match to that link, it only wastes effort and annoys any visitors that visit your site via that referral link.

If you are trying to go head to head with a online travel site like Expedia, you need to evaluate the task and match the end game to the budget. Expedia is already one of the biggest online travel websites but is also one of the biggest spenders when it comes to SEO with hundreds of thousands of dollars spent each each which has allowed them to build up around 2.64 million backlinks.

What are your options for outsourcing link building?

You have a number of options that you have options to outsource some or all of the task to buy back links to your marketing agency but make sure you avoid using any automated software or spammers that email your from Gmail addresses offering links from just $49/month….

How much should I spend on SEO?
There are a few ways you can calculate how much you should look at spending on your SEO activities to match or exceed your competitors, and platforms like SEMRush do help you estimate some of the cost if you were to buy that traffic. How much you should spend on Link building can be an easier task to calculate but can also result many times in a “how long is a piece of string” as some industries/verticals are very competitive.