Episode 014 – Paid Directories

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Paid directories and press releases are both excellent ways to get your website more backlinks.

There are some general rules to go by before you start paying your hard earned cash to paid directories. For starters, make sure you have enough content for the directories to make a fair judgment on your site. As a rule of thumb at least ten original pages but the more the better. Make sure your site isn’t under construction, partially finished, or have dead links.

The good paid directories use your money to hire someone to professionally review your site. The good paid directories will decline applications. Paying the money doesn’t mean your website will be included. This aspect of paid directories is what makes them more credible in the eyes of search engines.

Spending a good chuck of change on good paid directories is a good idea. If you only want to spend money on getting into one directory make that directory Yahoo. Yahoo charges $299 as an initial review fee and another $299 annually from that point on. It sounds like a lot but if you’re accepted into the directory it will one of your most important backlinks to your site.

These are the minimum criteria to be included in the directory:
• If the site is a commercial web site, the official business name must be visible to any visitor to that site;
• The site must clearly define its purpose, products, and/or services;
• The site may not appear in the Directory under a different URL;
• If the site is applicable to a specific geographic region, the address must be visible to any visitor to that site;
• The site must not contain any parts under construction;
• All links on the site must function properly;
• The site must be in the English language (or have an English version available);
• The site must support multiple browsers and capabilities (e.g., no Java-only sites);
• The site must be up and running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week;
• The site must not be dedicated to directing the user to another page;
• The page may not give the search engine different content than what the end-user sees.

From Yahoo Directory Terms and Conditions

To say the least it’s important to read the terms and conditions before you submit to any paid directory.

Here’s a short list of the top paid directories:
dir.yahoo.com
stpt.com/directory/
joeant.com
ezilon.com
botw.org
elib.org
directory.v7n.com
rlrouse.com
uncoverthenet.com
abilogic.com
sunsteam.com
alivedirectory.com
site-sift.com
wowdirectory.com
socengine.com
octopedia.com
massivelinks.com

For more directories visit: http://www.seocompany.ca/directory/web-directories.html