My question is, apart from submitting to DMOZ, GD and YD has any successful IM found a real benefit to submitting their new projects/websites or blogs to the hundreds of Directories spread over the w.w.w. I've never personally experienced any real benefit from such submissions and would really appreciate some sound advice on the benefits, if any of submitting a new blog, for example. For example, is there a true and tried formula you follow and is there a professional Directory submitter (desktop, self hosted submitter) you recommend. Please don't refer me to those rehashed Submitters that are provided by Firesale type sites, and I'm not interested in a paid submission service either. My IM blog is written with the primary aim of helping the "home" small business owner, who usually has limited access to start up capital. thanks in advance for some "real" help.
I do experience benefit from it, i think it depends on other things too, i have some sites doing well from directory submissions and other things combined, then i have sites that are submitted to directories as much but not doing as well, other things will come into play about how much benefit that you get from one promotional approach. I suggest lots of variation in your directory submissions, use plenty of new Titles, Descriptions and keep adding more, use free and paid for and keep doing it. Do the submissions by hand with something like InFormEnter or an alternative, or pay for a cheap service from guys offering submission packages here at DP. Dont do a batch and then forget all about it, keep doing it all year through.
I have used directory submission (all manual) my experience says it is not as good as it may have been but it does increase backlinks...
I personally have submitted one of my best worked sites to many free directories, and i have to say.. The links are not mostly counted in google, but in yahoo i have seen a good increase in the no. of backlinks. But frankly, these links are not worth wasting time if you are submitting by yourself.. hire some good SEO company for that.
As a part of a well rounded SEO effort directory submissions help a lot. They help target the keywords even if they don't pass a lot of link juice. I have a site or two that almost the only back links are from web directories that rank in the top 10 for some moderately competitive keywords.
It is part of a good SEO strategy. I have found much success with directories adding to my back links.
in my experience the more back links you have the more traffic you get One of my sites was listed in dmoz and gd but it was not getting any traffic as a result of that after building 600 + back links for that site (free directories, blogs and bidding directories) that site receives around 13K hits from Google while when it had only 20-30 back links it was getting around 200 - 300 per month
You will drive yourself crazy if you spend too much time counting backlinks. I don't know of any tool that reports 100%. I spent 10 weeks studying the backlink counts for 7 of my sites and quickly realized that from week to week the backlink counts fluctuated so much as to make the counts truly useless. IMHO, submitting to directories is the quickest and easiest ways to rank for your site's name. When it comes to SEO, ranking well for your name should be one of your top goals - it helps build credibility for your site. It's difficult to know for sure what Google is or is not doing in relationship to counting backlinks but remember Google is not the only game in town. The better directories can also send you targeted traffic. Think of it this way. Take 5-10 minutes each day and go through the Solicitations forum. Submitting to just one directory a day will yield you over 365 links (probably closer to 600 considering how many directories have the main listing and a details page) and ideally other site owners will find you and hopefully link to you as well. In your particular case, I would hunt for directories that specialize in blogs or your topic.
In my personal experience, yes. Directory submissions were probably the primary (but not the only) reason my backlink count rose from in the hundreds to now nearly 20,000 (Yahoo's count). Fortunately, being recently retired gives me lots of time to do manual submissions. My strategy has been twofold: • Submit to most of the free directories that are added daily to Digital Point's Directories > Solicitations and Announcements forum. And... • Selectively submit to high-quality paid directories with good PR. My statistics tracker actually does show some moderate traffic coming in from the better quality paid directories.
They do increase backlinks. Either pay for a submission service or better yet just look at the free directories posted in dp. Your almost guaranteed to get accepted quickly in directories owned by DP people while it could take months to get accepted in other directories.
Many thanks to all for sharing your experiences and results. I appreciate the time it took - particularly from those who do not own Directory submission services (smiling). And most of all for pointing me to the section of DP that deals with obtaining links in a timely manner. Guess I shouldn't have put off joining DP until a few days ago. Thanks again to all... I'm getting a good vibe about the folks at DP.