Whenever the topic of SEO comes up, I always still get questions about how to “hide text” and get good performance. I’m always amazed that people neglect the basics and focus heavily on tricks. The overwhelming bulk of SEO is about:
- Site Structure
- Links
- Content
In the early days, the Yahoo Directory was the most useful source of traffic on the Web. The small, editor managed directory (originally a static site by the Founders) was the “Who’s Who” of the Internet. As Google surpassed Altavista, bringing relevant search results, the interest in directories died off. While Hubs and Authorities never quite had the direct impact that was expected, being listed near other relevant results has a huge impact. You wouldn’t build a car before figuring out an engine, and you shouldn’t build a website without building your core. Your site structure helps spiders and users understand your site, content makes your site relevant if found, but links are the core of the site.
Submitting to primary and secondary directories will not create traffic over night, but it can create some of the core links that can help engines make sense of your site. Getting listing in the major directories will give you solid links to help define your site, and additional listings in industry specific directories helps further define yourself. All the SEO tricks in the world won’t give you quality traffic unless you build a solid Foundation first.
With Dunhill Vacations, we have a collection of directories that will catalog our articles as well, and when we do an industry write-up, we submit it to those directories. Over time, we are steadily building up quality in bound links, much more effectively than link swaps or other dubious link building strategies. Quality content with quality links pointing to it, it may not be sexy, but it’s still effective.