Don't over SEO your directory

It seems that so many directory owners spend too much time working on backlinks to their site. Sure PageRank is a good thing. Keep in mind that directories start out with one or two "strikes" against it with regards to Google penalties. Don't tempt them to take away any PR you have.

Spend time on things like customer service, branding, and effective use of your email templates. Get your site on as many directory lists as you can. Advertise your directory on SEO blogs with 125x125 banners.

If you have any additional suggestions to promote a directory that do not involve seo, please reply.

 

Infact slow & continuous SEO over the period does help your directory. We do keep performing various activities under SEO towards our directories.

Everything again has its own negative & positive side. One shouldn't overdo things.

 

"Infact slow & continuous SEO over the period does help your directory"

Yes it can help, but it also can hurt as you indicate if over done.

My point is that instead of spending all of your time competing with 10K other sites to rank for "web directory", spend time on getting and keeping customers. Don't you agree?

 

In the past ive definately been guilty of the obsessive backlink building, on one directory i really went hard at it, going for quantity of links at the time and if overdone i feel it can be damaging.

On two non directory sites that i have i noticed pr go up a notch and it seemed this was where there was an increase in content, on one of those sites there has been some steady backlink building but i feel the fact that ive updated it well has helped overall, that one site happens to be a blog and gets more commenting than others that i have.

When i thought over the usefulness of a web directory actually ranking for web directory or something similar, i can understand that this is handy if you rank on the first page for this and so it might bring a bit of extra business but in a way its not much use to the submitter because they are building backlinks for some other keyword or phrase, so beyond the directory homepage is where the usefulness is for them.

Its easy to become obsessed with one particular thing, feeling that this alone will increase business, and naturally somone might go a bit over the top with the seo part and this is the sort of thing that irks google i think, they seem fine with web directories, they seem less ok with directories that solely focus of the seo obsession and possibly promote the same unnatural seo.

I think some healthy backlink building is fine, just as long as the other things that are suggested are being done as well.

 

One has to understand boundary and limitations, that's what is the work of the SEO Executive. I have been working on my directories from 2005 and performing SEO on them.

Who says directories should only target 'Web Directory' ?

SEO isn't done just for pagerank in directory business. I do seo for my internal addon's, various categories and more.

Why simply target SEO for homepage? Why shouldn't SEO for a category, internal addon's be performed?

If you know what SEO is and how its done, you cannot over-do things. Only those who have set guildlines for SEO, blindly perform pre-written stuff have themselves hit by search engines.

Lastly poorly/badly performed seo doesn't only hit directories, it does hit general websites too.

 

it may get penalized if too aggressive in building links, google may think you are pursuing pagerank and sell pagerank.

 

humm, I agree with everything in your post.

My point is that many focus only on seo, or only on directory quality. Both of those things are important and I did not mean to indicate that there is no place for directory seo. My point is that each directory has a customer base (however large or small). The way to make money with directories is to get repeat business and expand the customer base. SEO is one way to expand the customer base, but it is not the only way.

pipes, how have you been?

Sure I'd take first page rank for "web directory" or any other related term.

 

Not bad thanks hotftuna, how about yourself?

Myself and others saw our directories come out of serps penalisations recently, also some have reported their pr being returned too, at round about the same time i think.

I have not had the pr return on mine, but serps penalisations lifted is something at least, plus i think a lot of us understand where we went wrong in the past.

Sad to see a bunch of new web directory owners (especially networks of them) making worse decisions and mistakes, some friendly warnings have been given out to them but falling on deaf ears i think.

 

Yes do see your point there.

I would suggest some points here that I consider are important to establish & expand customer base:

1. Easy Communication
1.a: Live Support
1.b: Telephone Number
1.c: Proper contact menu
1.d: Physical Company Address.

2. Editorial Integrity
2.a: Learn to say 'no'
2.b: Full Refund policy or Partial Refund Policy (Considering editor fee)
2.c: Qualified Editor who knows what he is doing

3. Quality Traffic to Categories
3.a: SEO for Categories
3.b: Add quality resources to categories


... Please add more (I'l add more later).. Gotta rush before a code crashes my project.. BRB

 

humm- thank you for adding to my thoughts.

Here is something I did one day when business was slow-

I made a flyer and faxed it to 20 SEO firms that listed their fax#.

Not something I would do again since I do not want to be a pest. Just needed to do something that day to drum up business to one of my directories.

 

Good sound advice.... Time spent on actually running your directory will gain much more mileage than promoting it.

 

The advice is noteworthy. However, link building is an important element when it comes to running business on the Web. Just as pipes mentioned, in the beginning I went for quantity and submitted to many free directories but now...I use a different strategy for link building...as far as directory submission goes...I hardly submit to free directories anymore.

 

i agree with you.

One thing to note though, is that before advertising your directory (125x125 banners and what not) it must be a solid directory or you might not see your money's worth.

 

Over do will definitely affect our promotional activity.