If you own a local business, then local search gives you major advantage over bloggers, online retailers, and other websites trying to rank well in Google. Local businesses are always advised to focus their energy and efforts to beat local competitors’ sites. The best way to ensure success in local search is to get your website listed with right web directory and review site.
Listing your website with a right web directory can substantially increase the online visibility of your business and attract more traffic. However, it is worth noting that not all web directories are as efficient and effective as others. Even though web directories are designed with regards to Google’s search algorithms, there can be many aspects that might have negative impact on your website’s rank.
So What Does Google Really Trust?
Needless to say, the trend of SEO has brought a revolution in the online industry. Webmasters incorporate SEO techniques and principles to attract visitors on their website. However, many still try to cheat the game by using right set of keywords and when visitors click on the website’s link they have to face disappointments and waste more time in finding the right resource.
In order to curb the efforts of visitors and to prevent them from scams, Google keeps on changing its search algorithm and deduct the ones that do not meet their standards. Since SEO is more focused on getting website results, it does not guarantee quality and relevance of the content provided.
Google controls a monopoly when it comes to search engine business. Also, the page rank or Alexa provided by Google is highly accepted by industry and local people as well. So when it comes to web directories, Google makes sure that they abide by the policies and regulations to ensure that end users get relevant results. Google has the tendency and authority to exclude any web directory or directories that failed to toe the line.
In clear words, it means that if you are planning to build a directory you would need to watch out for certain subject that you build it around. For example, a directory that is general in nature has more chance of getting dropped by Google than the ones who are niche specific. Low quality links, broken links, algorithms, spam filed content and so on are some major reason why some web directories do not show up in search results.
Finding the Right Directories
Listing your business on web directories can be profitable in numerous ways. However, you should make sure that you are choosing the right directory or directories while doing so. Apart from cost, there are many other important factors that you should take into consideration when making decision. These factors include:
Quality Of Existing Links
This is one of the most common and quick way to determine whether the directory listing will be beneficial for you or not. You should begin with elaborating the potential of existing links. What do you see?
Do you see maximum links that look like spam or have spun content? If you see such things, then the directory has more chances to negatively impact your search ranking. So, make sure you do a thorough research on this aspect before taking any decision.
Regular Maintenance
Make sure that the site you choose is updated regularly. It should have an efficient team of technological experts to maintain the speed, content quality and links of the site. Dead or outdated links should not be the part of directory you are choosing to list your business. Your prime focus should be on the time and date the site was last updated, and not the length of time of its existence.
Another way to judge the stability of the site is to see whether the site is well edited or not. Are the businesses and new companies listed under relevant categories? All these things will help you make the right decision.
Check For Editorial Policy
Do some research and look for pages on the site that clearly understates the editorial guidelines of the directory. If it doesn’t define any standards for accepting the sites to be listed, then this is definitely not the place to be. Good web directories will always have certain criteria to check new sites and their relevancy for the category applied.
Compliance With Google’s Terms of Service
Since Google hold the monopoly when it comes to online search, your focus should be to avail the benefits of directories that go well with Google’s terms of service. This will ensure that you get better results on Google search listings as well.
The chosen web directory should be well regarded by the terms of service provided by Google. It is the best way to ensure that your chosen directory is genuine and do not carry any kind of unnatural links.
Most Trustworthy Web Directories
If you have already decided to pay to get listed on an online directory, then you should be aware of all the options that you can consider for your business. There are millions of online web directories that you may explore, but not all can provide you with equal results. Some are definitely better than others, while some might be just average.
The final pick would majorly depend upon the annual fee or cost of getting listed, but the above mentioned factors cannot be overlooked too. To make the task simpler for you, we have listed some of the most common and preferable web directories that you may consider to choose.
These are the top directories that comply with Google’s TOS (check out this video – yes, will open in a new window – in which Matt Cutts explains why the below directories can be trusted – the editorial discretion):
Despite of your ability and freedom to choose any of the listed directories, you still might not get the chance to write your description or choose the category you would like to get listed under.
All these decisions are made by the directories editor. If the editor exists, he knows how to do his job well. So you don’t need to worry about your search ranking on the internet. There are certain algorithms followed while making such discretion.
Robert Gombos writes for several online business and marketing related websites. He believes that connection and involvement are keys to success even in today’s technological world.
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