A Classic SEO Tactic The Gurus Won’t Reveal

Search engine optimization and traffic are topics nearly every webmaster is concerned about. Many resort to social networking sites in an effort to gain exposure, but according to several performance indicators, traffic from these sources performs poorly. Total Adsense earnings from the Digg effect, $0.64. Total Adsense earnings from 8,592 unique stumble visitors, $0.96. This is the result of several conditions: ad placement, ad type, integration/blending, and more; but webmasters across the board agree, social bookmarking sites provide little, if any significant revenue.

Sometimes, Revenue Isn’t Everything

Despite the lack of earnings, landing on the Digg front page resulted in quite a few backlinks from other bloggers, which is extremely beneficial to any search engine optimization campaign. A few months have passed since then, and although the links fail to send a significant amount of visitors, Nullamatix.com’s ratings (authority) have gone up according to a variety of sources. Backlinks, no matter the source, are guaranteed to provide positive results.

Directories: To Submit, or Not To Submit?

The age old question, “are directory submissions beneficial?” The short answer is yes. Old timers and self proclaimed experts refuse to admit the benefits of this controversial practice, but here’s the scoop. Aaron Wall, a very respected name in the industry, submits his blog to some well known paid directories. Here’s a screen shot taken from the Aviva Web Directory, which charges $49.99 a year for a regular listing.

Still not convinced? How about a screen shot from the Best Site Archive directory, which charges $25 a year for a regular listing?

There you have it - three of the Internet’s most respected marketers with paid directory links. But if links from directories aren’t beneficial, why would these Internet marketing elites spend the time and cash submitting their sites? Because directory submissions do work, they just don’t want to share how beneficial this valuable tactic really is.

Directory Submission Tactics

I’ve spoken with Shoemoney on IRC a few times, and each time the conversation was pretty brief. Why? He’s busy, and I seriously doubt he’s allocating his time to filling out directory submission forms. Either his devoted followers are spending their hard earned money and submitting his site(s) (which I seriously doubt), or he’s outsourcing his off page SEO development. The method of execution isn’t really important. The fact is, Internet marketing gurus are using paid directory submissions to establish backlinks and build credibility. So again, directories do provide long term value.

Semi-Automate The Submission Process

If you’re like me, hiring a SEO firm to go around and do something I’m fully capable of doing myself is out of the question. But filling out submission forms gets really old, really fast. That’s why I use Firefox and an excellent time saving free add-on called SEO Form. SEO Form places itself in the the Firefox status bar, and once populated with the necessary info, forms are filled out with a single mouse click. The add-on provides space for 4 titles and 4 descriptions for up to 4 sites. You could easily use all four site tabs for one site, which results in 16 different titles, and 16 different descriptions. This is probably one of the most time saving Firefox add-ons I’ve ever used.

Where To Go From Here

We’ve established that directory submissions do provide long term value, and SEO Form is an excellent tool that provides a significant level of automation, so what now? Start submitting! Search Google for free directory lists; there are literally thousands to choose from. In addition to free directories, choose a few paid directories as well. Make sure the titles and descriptions for any paid directory submissions are unique for optimum results. Paid directories are a worth while investment, so take the time to submit unique information manually.