Now that I finished revamping the look of my blog it’s about time I posted something new. BTW about half of the code of the theme was written by me so it’s a bit of a mess and there may still be a few bugs but it still validates :).
Now, back to our topic. As I gain more and more experience running a directory, I find that the most important thing when it comes to link building is sustainability which basically means natural, organic links. At first I thought that getting natural, permanent links for a directory is really hard. However, I must admit that I was wrong. What do I mean? Generally speaking the natural links that a directory can get are limited and they are links that all other directories already have. So what can you do and what more can you offer to attract links? Let’s take a look first at what is a directory or at least what it should be, a collection of useful links and resources. Are collection of links linkable? Yes they are!! Here is an example, I was searching big G for free icons. At least at the datacentre I am hitting result number three is this list. No original content but nonetheless, really useful content that has attracted over 4000 natural, permanent, free backlinks and I would guess a fair amount of traffic as well.
Of course, the problem with a directory is that people will not link as easily to a directory’s category, let’s face it blogs and even simple pages are more linkable than a category of a directory. A simple solution to that problem would be to add a blog to the directory, create your fabulous and useful categories filled with links and then blog about it and promote the blog story instead of the category. Obviously, the blog story will have a link to the category page or you may also use other ways to funnel traffic and link love to the directory but that’s your call.
Edit to add: A subject that I haven’t covered is how to promote your list of resources, here are a few simple ways (and an opportunity for me to test how my new theme handles lists :))
- Social Bookmarking
- Pinging high profile bloggers that blog about subjects related to your list
- Doing a search “list theme resources” +site:.edu (or .gov) and sending a few polite emails notifying the webmasters that maintain the .edu and ,gov pages that you identify as potential link targets
Related Posts
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- Link Development for Directories Random Thoughts I was thinking about what kind of links a directory owner should try to get. My view of the topic
- Directory Contest Update The directory contest is getting hot with a lot of participants. Currently (at least at the datacenter I am hitting)
- Link Building For Directories Link building for directories is a hard job (I am talking of course for natural links). Very few people, if
