SEO Blog

No ethically sourced link should damage your site. However, there are those that are significantly more effective than others.

The best links are often those that are provided naturally. So for example, if you post a piece of research on your website, media sources might well pick this up and send a link through to you. Because they have done so out of choice, there will be no reciprocal issues, it will appear to be natural and will pass on huge strength to that page.

But these kinds of links don’t come along every day and so, particularly if you are just starting out in optimising a site, sometimes it is important to simply get the numbers up.

More often than not you’ll end up having to turn to directories.
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The Internet is awash with directories. Some are good, strong directories, others are hardly worth the time of day. The challenge your are charged with is finding those that will give you the most benefit.

At the top of the list for any business looking for quick, free submissions is for Yellow Pages sites like Yell.com and Qype. These provide a whole range of benefits for your site, as not only do they provide a standard link, they also help boost your local profile and relevance with the search engines.

Yellow page sites, like all other authoritative directories, are given plenty of weight by the search engines. By having your website listed here in the relevant category and with your contact details clearly displayed Google knows exactly where you are located and what you do. This will all help you to gain future rankings in local listings and for industry keywords that you’re targeting.
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The Internet plays host to thousands of directories. Some are stronger than others and as such provide more benefit for those who use them. The one thing that they all have in common though is that they provide an opportunity for businesses and website owners to promote their wares.

For websites, directories can be a fantastic source of links. Most will allow you to include company information and a URL, which in turn will help develop your local search profile and link building efforts in one fell swoop. However, even better than just offering a URL link, some also allow embedded text links.

In terms of SEO, we are all trying to optimise pages for certain phrases. This is to give the search engines the clearest possible indication what we want that particular page to rank for. Therefore, by having a link (which builds strength) within a specialist term (increasing relevance), you are increasing the benefit of this one listing.
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