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> Directory Listings and
Linking
There are tens of thousands of
directories on the internet. Getting listed on many of them is free and
others charge an initial and/or annual fee. Many of these directories can
be important sources of quality traffic in that they are linked to your
website. It is
important to recognize that although the largest source of traffic for your
website will be derived from high search engine rankings (SEO & PPC), many internet users make their travel plans using
directories and not search engines.
Some directories, like Open
Directory or the Yahoo Directory seek to categorize as much of the
internet's information as possible, from personal websites, to travel and
tourism, manufacturing, computers and more. Other
directories are more  specialized and narrow in scope. For innkeepers, the
important ones can include B&B Directories (such as www.bedandbreakfast.com,
www.bbonline.com, there are
hundreds), local or regional accommodation directories, chamber of
commerce directories, etc. Some of these directories are free or
inexpensive, others can be quite pricey.
As part of an internet marketing campaign, Digital Storm can
research the various directory options in your region, submit your
listings, edit photos, write descriptions, etc. We then can track the
volume and quality of the traffic that they send to your site.
Linking and the Power of Directories
In addition to the traffic that
clicks through to your website from the links you have on various
directories, another huge benefit that accrues from directory listings is
the importance the search engines place on those "links". Many
directories are accorded a lot of weight or importance by the search engines.
For example, let's say that your website is listed in the Open Directory
and in the www.bedandbreakfast.com
directory. Both of these directories are considered very
important by the search engines and thus their links to your site
are considered to be important. As Google puts it,
they consider a link from an important site to your site to be an
important "vote" for the value of your site and therefore your
site is accorded more weight and better ranking.
Other sources of linking that can
help your site include: links from businesses similar to yours (but
perhaps Geographically separated) and different businesses in your
community . The only real pitfall to linking, is when you do reciprocal
linking with "link farms" or other sites whose sole function is
to increase link popularity. The search engines are becoming increasingly
sophisticated and have methods of determining the origin and nature of the
links they find. If you are caught trying to unfairly manipulate your
search rankings by use of link farms or other illegitimate means, your
rankings can be seriously penalized. As with other aspects of internet
marketing, care must be taken not to jeopardize the search rankings you
already have. Mistakes or over-aggressiveness can be very costly. At
Digital Storm, we understand that your website is (or will be) your most
important marketing tool and do not use short-term gimmicks to fool the search
engines.
Still have unanswered questions
about Directory Listings? Just email
them to us and we will gladly reply..
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