Yahoo Directory Morocco Tour Operator Page

In Google’s Index?: No (As of 7.19.10)

Family Friendly Sites Morocco Tour Operator Page

In Google’s Index?: No (As of 7.19.10)

Best of the Web Morocco Tour Operator Page

In Google’s Index?: No (As of 7.19.10)

First as I pointed out in the post about Business.com, lets look at what Matt Cutts says regarding paid directory submissions.

To summarize he notes:

• Does it have End User Value: is it  a list of links or is it valuable to users? BOTW is fairly stringent about the quality of the websites they list, actually making it a decent directory for finding relevant sites, so yes it has an end user value.
• Is There a High Price Point on Getting In: The higher the better… At $299 (for the one time listing) its a pretty high price point.
• Does it have Editorial Value: Do some sites get rejected, and like I said before the answer is yes on that front.

Note that BOTW along with Yahoo Directory are the two examples Mr. Cutts points out as being of high quality. There is your answer straight from Google’s mouth .

A few other reasons why I like BOTW for directory submissions:

• They offer a one off payment
• Pages in the directory even down 5 levels from the home page have been crawled recently
• Your site is grouped with topically relevant sites in your niche
• Your site link is listed on a page with a title that is important to your keyword niche
• Its a link that can separate you from competitors not willing to pay $299 to be listed.

So all in all, when I am doing directory submissions, BOTW is definitely on the list.

Well, the truth of the matter is that it depends. How much is a particular ranking worth to your business? Are you in a competitive field? Do you have more time than money or money than time? As with most things, there are just a ton of variables.

If rankings matter to you, and if your niche is somewhat competitive, IMO, Business.com can be a great directory to be listed in for most websites. Why?

Well, when the guys at SEOmoz put out their 2009 Search Engine Ranking Factors they listed the 5 most important factors in Search Engine Rankings in 2009 as:

1. Keyword Focused Anchor Text from External Links
2. External Link Popularity (How many total external links point to your site)
3. Diversity of Link Sources (How many unique domains link to your site)
4. Keyword Use Anywhere in the Page Title
5. Trustworthiness of the Domain

So let’s see how a listing in Business.com matches up to those factors

Keyword Focused Anchor Text from External Links

Business.com realizes that often times a website name has very little to do with the content of a website and as a web searcher, you need descriptive words to know if you want to visit a site. Thus they ask you in their TOS to please make the anchor text of your link descriptive.

External Link Popularity (How many total external links point to your site)

In the effort to gain more links to your site, Business.com is a great source as it is a fairly easy link to get if you have a decent website and are willing to let your website be editorially reviewed.

Diversity of Link Sources (How many unique domains link to your site)

Business.com is an easy way to diversify the backlinks that your site has.

Keyword Use Anywhere in the Page Title

Getting in the right directory category allows the link to your site to fall on a topically relevant page- meaning relevant links are good links!

Trustworthiness of the Domain

Using SEOmoz’s Linkscape tool, Business.com shows a domain trust of about 6.6 out of 10. To put that in perspective, USAToday has a domain trust of around 7.5 and the Dallas Morning News does as well. So in terms of the trust level of the domain, it is on par with those two news sources. Not bad for a one off price of about $299 forever!

Matt Cutts on the Value of Directories For Search Rankings

Matt Cutts, the Google czar of search quality, talked about what makes a directory a valuable link in this video

To summarize he notes:

• End User Value: is it  a list of links or is it valuable to users? FWIW, I know lots of people get solid business leads from Business.com, so it is a valuable service.
• Price Point on Getting In: The higher the better… At $299 its a pretty high price point.
• Editorial Value: Do some sites get rejected, and the answer is yes on that front.

So in the end, my vote is a big Yes if search engine rankings are valuable to your business plan.

Here’s a Coupon for $50 off The Business.com directory listing:

Click the image and $50 will be subtracted when you enter your website. Good Luck!

The other posts in the series are:

• Overview of Finding the Linkerati
• 17 Motivations for Linking
• Related Ideas (this post)
• Search operators to find Linkerati.
• How to use directories like DMOZ, & Yahoo Directory to build links (and no I don’t mean being listed in them).
• How to use Social Media sites like Delicious and Digg to find the linkers.
• Studying the masters to find linking opportunities.

This is a simple but profound concept. Most people when they are looking at link building just think straight forward. Let’s take the travel industry for example and specifically hotels that are looking to promote themselves. Natural tendency is to just think, “OK, hotels. How can I get links to hotels? Who is linking to information about hotels?”

Now, if you use the 17 motivations for linking you will likely build yourself a pretty decent list of potential communities of linkerati to target. But you can grow this list exponentially if you will take the concept, in this case “hotels” and brainstorm related ideas.

In 30 seconds, here is a list of related ideas to a particular hotel-

• geographic location,
• style of hotel,
• specials the hotel runs,
• employee backgrounds,
• businesses nearby,
• architectural methods,
• famous people that have stayed there,
• technology in the hotel,
• hotel restaurant
• & community relations.

Now if I take each of these ideas, for example the graphic location of the hotel- in this case Dallas, and I run Dallas through the 17 motivations for linking I can probably expand my list a couple times over for possible communities to target.

Lets try it:

17 motivations for linking to “Hotel Excellent”

• Paying homage- if someone got there career started at Hotel Excellent or had the best night of sleep in their life
• Identifying methodology- if the management style was of a certain type
• Providing background- explaining the setting of a conference at Hotel Excellent
• Correcting- If Hotel Excellent did something not so excellent they might get a link from someone correcting what happened.
• Criticizing- Same as the above, but criticizing what happened.
• Authenticating claims- If someone said Hotel Excellent was in Austin, it could be authenticated that it is in Dallas
• Alerting to works soon to be published- Hotel Excellent could be soon doing a promotion
• Spreading the word on poorly disseminated work- a promotion that is not well known
• Identifying original concepts- If Hotel Excellent was the first to come up with the breakfast buffet
• Promoting one’s own authority- If someone asked what the best hotel in Dallas was, a certain blogger, wishing to show their own authoritative knowledge of Dallas might link to Hotel Excellent as the response
• Providing and immediate access mechanism to the subject in question- In discussing Hotel Excellent, someone might link at it.
• Providing a graphical image- if someone needed a picture of a hotel room, Hotel Excellent could get the link
• Acknowledging sponsors- If Hotel Excellent sponsored a conference
• Linking to business partners- If Hotel Excellent also ran B&B Excellent
• Linking to products or services purchased- If someone bought the honeymoon package they might link to information about it.
• Linking to clients- Hotel Excellent’s security provider might link to their website to show it as a client.
• Status symbols- If Hotel Excellent gave away badges to frequent guests or something maybe they would link to it.

Ok, so in no time at all I have a nice list of 17 possible areas to explore for people who might link to the Hotel Excellent website.

Now, as I run Dallas through that same list I could come up with the following

• Paying homage- Groups honoring Dallas citizens, famous people, or ideas that originated there
• Identifying methodology- Groups honoring famous methodology that is executed in Dallas
• Providing background- Groups talking about history and neighborhood overviews of Dallas
• Correcting- People correcting misinformation about Dallas
• Criticizing- People criticizing Dallas
• Authenticating claims- People trying to authenticate claims about Dallas facts
• Alerting to works soon to be published- Groups running upcoming breaking stories related to Dallas
• Spreading the word on poorly disseminated work- Groups trying to spread the word on Dallas events
• Identifying original concepts- and so on and so forth
• Promoting one’s own authority
• Providing and immediate access mechanism to the subject in question
• Providing a graphical image
• Acknowledging sponsors
• Linking to business partners
• Linking to products or services purchased
• Linking to clients
• Status symbols-

My list of possible ponds to fish in for links just doubled. If I ran the other related ideas through the list, it would be no time before I had over 100 areas to go searching for the linkerati that I might could target for links. By usiing the related concepts and 17 motivations for linking, I should be able to find layers and layers of potential link sources that just thinking about “hotels” would have never gotten me.

The other posts in the series are:

• Overview of Finding the Linkerati
• Motivations for Linking (this post)
• Lateral Thinking.
• Search operators to find Linkerati.
• How to use directories like DMOZ, & Yahoo Directory to build links (and no I don’t mean being listed in them).
• How to use Social Media sites like Delicious and Digg to find the linkers.
• Studying the masters to find linking opportunities.

Why do some websites link to other websites? As people are predominately self-interested, what would make someone take the time to link and acknowledge someone else? Understanding these motivations can help link builders develop high quality, naturally given links which can both help rankings, drive interested traffic, establish authority and create business.

Old School Reasons for Citations

Scholars in the field of bibliometric literature have been studying changes and trends in the output of scholarly publications and literature for years. One of the areas they have tracked are reasons for citations in scholarly works. Now, given ink citations on paper pages in scholarly books in a library somewhere, may seem eons away from pixels and blogs, but what about the motivations behind the citations?

Several studies conducted found the following motivations behind the giving of citations in academic books:

• Paying homage
• Identifying methodology
• Providing background
• Correcting
• Criticizing
• Authenticating claims
• Alerting to works soon to be published
• Spreading the word on poorly disseminated work
• Identifying original concepts
• Promoting one’s own authority

Internet Citations

At the turn of the century, scholars turned some of their focus to studying why hyperlinks were given on the internet. In addition to the previously mentioned motivations, the scholars noted that the following were motivations in hyper linking between websites

• Providing and immediate access mechanism to the subject in question
• Providing a graphical image
• Acknowledging sponsors
• Linking to business partners
• Linking to products or services purchased
• Linking to clients

I think one other motivations to add to the list are is as follows:

• Status symbols- People are always looking for something or someone to validate who they are or what they do, and in turn want to use these status symbols to communicate their value to others. That is why badges like “Top 50 fill in the blank website”, Better Business Bureau Online Member, &  TripAdvisor’s Visitor’s Choice awards are highly linked items. Winners (the linkerati) can use them to validate their website/company/service etc to their own community.

So when you are looking for the linkerati for your product or service think about what types of websites you can be the fulfillment of some of the above motivations and you are sure to find the pockets of linkerati in your niche.

In this series I am going to cover the following topics:

• Motivations for Linking.
• Lateral Thinking.
• Search operators to find Linkeratti.
• How to use directories like DMOZ, & Yahoo Directory to build links (and no I don’t mean being listed in them).
• How to use Social Media sites like Delicious and Digg to find the linkers.
• Studying the masters to find linking opportunities.

Hope you enjoy!