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Posts Tagged ‘Anchor Text’

How can you increase your chances for acceptance in directories?

October 3rd, 2009 Ryan No comments

There are restrictions to being accepted by a directory and if you don’t follow the rules or guidelines set down by the directory you are most likely not going to be accepted. Affordable and effective website promotion methods considered today for internet business owners are the use of directory submissions. Some of the rules for directory submissions are in fact not written in the regulations of the directory itself and there is a right way and a wrong way to go about directory submissions. There are thousands of SEO directories available online and they all have guidelines that must be followed and you need to ensure you follow the correct steps to ensure acceptance or at least have the highest possible chance to have your submission and your website accepted. These rules apply if you are submitting to the directory yourself or if you obtain the services of a directory submission company.

1. Submission of Home Pages only.

Some of the SEO-friendly directories available to you will only allow acceptance of your home page and generally deep linking is not allowed from these particular directories. There are some directories that state they will permit deep linking with an individual page URL or using a sub-folder and generally you will be accepted if you try to use deep linking. However if it is not stated that there is deep-linking then you will most certainly find your submission is rejected.

2. Keyword targeting and website titles.

When you are submitting your entry you are generally asked for your website title. Usually three to five words are permitted in the website title field; if your website title itself is very long then this may mean your submissions are rejected regardless. This title usually will be the anchor text detail that will be used to link back to your website. This field therefore is a very important aspect in the directory submission process. Some directories will request the website title be used and others will let you use some keyword targeting as well. Either way you still need to ensure that your title and keyword information is within the guidelines or rules of the directory submission site.

3. Category selection is a vital factor in directory submissions.

You must ensure that you select the correct category for your directory submissions. This point cannot be stressed enough. If you choose an incorrect category or an unrelated category it is almost certain that your submission will be rejected. The directories generally state in their rules or guidelines that you need to select the deepest category option available. That means you need to choose the category that is most directly related to your business product or service and website. The deepest category is in fact the best option for you anyway and for your website but you need to be very thoughtful when selecting the category you wish to be listed under. Good category choice improves your acceptance rate but also is the best assistance for your website as it will allow the directory listing to provide a contextual link back to your page rather than a standard back link that may not be relevant to your business. The contextual links back to your page are much more important for your ranking and overall business visibility than a standard back link.

4. Free Email Addresses.

Using a free email address during the directory submission will often also mean that your submission is rejected. Make sure that you are using the domain email address rather than a free email address option. The directories see this almost as a non person requesting entry to the directory and can, as stated, in many cases reject your request for submission. The above pointers should give you a background into some of the requirements you need to keep in mind when submitting to directories. Following these simple guidelines can increase your chances of acceptance. Other options for increased acceptance are to use the services of a directory submission service for promotion of your website. They will be able to give you a higher acceptance rate and a much better result for the investment of time and money to create the submissions yourself.\r\n\r\nFollow these seo tips above and you will find whether you submit to the directories yourself or you are using a directory submission service that you will have a much higher acceptance rate and the aim of course is to improve the volume of traffic to your website. By following the directory guidelines you actually have a much better result because your entries will be relevant and therefore interested parties are more likely to be relevant to your product or business service therefore increasing your opportunity for profit.

About Author

Michiel Van Kets was tempted by the good weather of Phuket Island and made his move to live on a tropical island, while making money online. His SEO firm consists of Western SEO-experts and local Thai staff. The company offers directory submission service, especially deep linking. He also writes for his blog about affordable seo. The blog is aimed at anybody looking for some basic, but useful seo advice. Manual-Submissions.com

7 Link Building Tips

July 25th, 2005 Ryan No comments

1. Vary the keywords in your link ”anchor” text

Unless you provide only one product or service the chances are you will want to rank for many key phrases. One way to help achieve this objective is to change the link text you want all new sites to use periodically. Vary the anchor text slightly each time and by doing so you can cover more of your targeted key phrases. This approach can help your site rank for many keywords rather than just one or two.

If you do only provide one product or service on your web site it is still important to vary anchor text. If you sell ”blue widgets” then you could also use link text like ”cheap blue widgets” or ”blue widget store”. This means your links take on a more natural feel and are much less likely to be penalised or filtered out by search engines for being ”fake links”.

2. Set up your link information differently – create a link in context

Typically people set up their link information in a very similar way, however you could offer your link information with the hyperlink inside the description instead of at the beginning. Imagine this is a description about your web site on a partner’’s link page. Instead of a typical hyperlink followed by a description you could write a sentence describing your web site and then place “your descriptive hyperlink” inside it.

One reason for doing this is that it reads more naturally and search engines may value the link higher as it reads more like a narrative. Many webmasters will be happy to accept this style even if some do not. To cover yourself offer the link in context as a second option along with your regular link information, that way if some sites can”t support the layout you still get your link.

3. Vary where your links point

Try to vary where link partners point to on your site. It’’s fine to have the majority of links pointing into your home page, however it can be beneficial to have some links pointing to other key pages on your web site as well. Taking this approach balances out your linking and can help raise the profile of more pages on your web site.

4. How to find potential link partners from your competitors

If a web site links to your competitors it may also link to yours, and in order to find these potential link partners you can use search engines. Not so long ago Google was useful for getting a lot of back link information about a site. Recently Google’’s back link data is a lot less forthcoming and it now tends to show only a tiny percentage of the sites that are linking combined with a lot of internal link data. Whether the few web sites Google shows us are the ones it finds important or whether they are in fact red herrings we cannot say for certain.

I would assume the latter. Currently Yahoo is a better portal to check for backlinks. To generate a list of linking web sites on Yahoo simply go to http://www.yahoo.com and type the following into the Yahoo search bar – “linkdomain:www.mycompetitorwebsite.com” This will deliver up to date link information as read by Yahoo. The only downside with the information is that one site may appear many times if it is giving multiple links.

5. Alternate your description text

This is often overlooked, but there is no real advantage to be had if the description text supporting your inbound links is always identical. To avoid the possibility of a description ever being seen as ”duplicate content” alternate it when you can. If you combine it with varied anchor text [as in tip 1] you”re heading in the right direction.

6. Link to good related content from your web site

It seems like an obvious thing to say, but with so many people caught up in link exchanging you sometimes wonder if we”re losing site of the basics. If you have something useful to say on your site and can back it up with a useful link to another web site then do so. Not every link has to be reciprocated. This resourceful linking will allow your visitors to read around the subject. Linking to informative related content is useful for visitors and search engines quite like it too.

7. Seek out directory links

Links from good web directories can be some of the best links you can get for your web site. Aaron Wall has a -directory of directories- at http://www.directoryarchives.com where you will find a great selection of search engine friendly directories. Some of the directories are free to get listed in whilst others may charge a fee.

Photo Credits – Ella’s Dad, Chain