Ok so I run a pretty big site. I have exchanged around 300 backlinks with sites in my niche. I have quality content, and my site loads fast and is valid markup wise. I have optimized head tags, paragraphs, and other things. I am have gotten to the 2nd page of Google in a relativly competitive niche. I have not been doing much Directory submitting. Should I do more? How important is it?
I think you should do more directory submitting. Not only should you submit to directories, but you should add your site to paid directories that will give you a high listing. The reason I say that is because you will get a one-way link, which is very valuable.
Yes, but only directories within your niche and the 50 biggest general directories... the rest is pretty much waste of time.
Yep. You should. This'll give you some nice one-way links, which can (in no particular order): (a) bring you traffic (b) make your link profile look much more natural (c) improve your link pop and possibly rankings Of course, relevant/niche directories are the way to go. Also be sure to try DMOZ, even though it takes a hell of a lot of time usually. Warkot
I have submitted to pretty much all of the directories in my niche. They are mostly new. I will try some paid directories. What is the actual advantage of paid directories? I hear that paid directories have fewer listings... How is this good?
I say go for both link exchange and directories. Going to paid directories is a form of investment. Depending on the paid directory you can have higher priority in the listing, if it has a limited listing that would give you a higher share on their PR.
Paid dirs often go a more rigorous path when deciding who can be listed and who can't. In other words, they might care about the quality of the submissions more. This is not to say, however, that all paid dirs are always better than free ones. After all, DMOZ is totally free and totally rocks. So use your judgement when deciding where to submit. If you are not required to link back, a link from a relevant dir is always good, it might get you some traffic. Besides traffic and theme relevancy, I also always look at how many links are at a typical dir's page, if the URLs are in normal HTML, if the pages are properly cached and indexed, etc. Hope this helps, Warkot
I see... I submitted two 5 very big directories today that were not free. I also submitted to roughly 30 free directories. I am also getting many more natrual link backs which is also good. I guess it just takes some time.