I am working for an advertisement agency in Search Engine Marketing Department. We develop and promote Real Estate website (Home Builders) Big guys. As one of my link development strategies was, is submitting these sites to paid directories such as: business.com yahoo.com site-sift.com realz.com joent.com botw.com etc But some guy from other department who is very close to the president, said that it's just wasting our clients' budget. There is no need to submit their sites to these directories, because they will not give any positive effects in the long run. The clients are very picky I know that. I am trying my best to rank them high. In my opinion this was a great idea to place them into these directories. What do you think? Was I right or the other guy? I also submit these sites to 800 free SEO friendly directories, article submissions, press releases, and forum sigs. Should i buy links instead? Should i do link exchanges, but if you look at their sites www.dmbinc.com they are very professional, they are not just like some other private real estate agents Any ideas is how to increase traffic for these guys? Any other link development strategy, please help! By the way, i also did SEO for the sites!
IMHO, those links from those very well established and old directory/websites, will give your client's website a NICE boost in TRUST(rank). As far as SEO and serp rank goes, it's just as good (or maybe JUST a bit more nice) as any other link. Anyway, it's an expensive trip (about $1000/year for all those submissions right ?). But I'll do the same as you did, anyday, IF the client is ok with those money. My recommendation would be, do it from now on, too.
I think Big Established websites eventually get themselves listed in Yahoo directory. And as Cristian Mezei said, these links will help build trust of the website. The site will become an authority in its field if it gets links from these big directories. Plus, these are permanent links, and will get lots of more links and traffic to the website. So you should go for these links.
What is your role in the company and what is the other guy's role? Often times in office politics, no matter how hard you try, some people won't let you cloud an issue with facts and relevant data.
I think submitting to those directories would be a very good investment on your client's part. A real estate firm should have a budget big enough to at least submit their site to the big boys of directories. Your co-worker who voted against probably has no idea of how link building (popularity) works. He may only be looking at this from a direct traffic's point-of-view. Whenever I market any site, I always shoot for the long-term goal which is to obtain good organic search results. This is a good goal to have because it'll save you lots of money in the long-run. Why spend money on cost-per-click advertising when you could get free clicks from organic search results?