Paid Directories For SEO – Which Ones Are Worth It?
Part 1 – The Yahoo & Business.com Directories
When doing SEO link campaigns for clients I’m inevitably asked ‘Is it worth it to pay to get in directories?’ A popular variation is ‘Which paid directories are worth getting into?’ They want to know which ones guarantee top search engine rankings.
Unfortunately, the majority of my answer will be very general. First, though, let’s look at the big ticket ones so we can get them out of the way.
The Yahoo Directory – Important, But Not as Crucial Now
The one that always pops up in clients’ minds is the Yahoo Directory. Once a free submission, it is now $300. A year. Is it worth that? For most, No. Once upon a time it was a very valuable link.
It could provide a huge push to a site’s standing all on its own. It was that important. Now, however, as the Web has grown and grown, its power has declined. Similar to the ODP Directory.
If you are a company with a large budget for SEO linking, then go ahead and do it. It can only help. But it’s not worth the money for those whose wallet isn’t so big, which is most people. The money could be better spent elsewhere.
Business.com – Still a Good Linking Buy
Business.com, however, is a better bet, though its price has gone up recently to $199 for the 1st year, $149 to renew after that. Still, they do offer real traffic to your website in addition to the link value.
For example, the Yahoo Directory isn’t used very often today. The Yahoo flagship for producing traffic to sites is now its search engine, which is a free listing.
Another clear advantage that Business.com offers over Yahoo is that you can have 4 more links listed, along with your main one. This offers the opportunity to put links to pages on your site other than the homepage.
Although the homepage is always the most important part of your site, a long-term link campaign should expand to include other pages. It helps the site as a whole in SEO.
In the next section of this series, we’ll look at another area of paid directories directories that focus on a niche. Specifically the niche, or niches, that your site fits into.
Go on to Paid Directories, Part 2 – Niche Directories.
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Article written by Jonathan Cook
