When I first started this blog back on Blogger last summer, I somehow got the idea that listing my blog in as many directories as possible was the way to go. I don’t think I read this anywhere but I think my theory was that as many links I could get to my website as possible would be good. I eventually amassed a very large collection of directory listings in my sidebar. The 80×15 banner was my attribution of choice, which I displayed proudly like a badge of honor.
When I made the switch over to WordPress, I kept the directory listings for awhile but I realized that I didn’t really see any traffic from any of these directories. Most of my traffic comes from various social networks & direct visitors, as it did then as well. So I decided the space was too valuable to clutter up with 20+ little directory buttons. I also felt like the only people benefiting from these buttons and reciprocated links on my blog were the directories – not me.
It’s been a month now that I’ve been on this new home of mine and I’m starting to wonder if I did the right thing. I wonder if that “every little bit helps” method I had before was correct, and I got too full of myself in thinking that I didn’t need these links anymore.
So what have you found with directories? If anyone reading has any experience with listing themselves in the many blog directories there are around there on the net I’d love to hear it – please share!
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When I first came in to blogging (which was not long ago), I was also doing the same. Though I just got tired signing up in every directory listing that I passed by. I also realized that the banners looked messy on my blog, so I did not add them back after I changed my layout.
Feedjit is really a good widget, I was able to know where are all those visitors coming from. I rarely catch visitors coming from the directories that I've signed up. It was mostly coming from entrecard, google, and ex-links.
The link backs I think were also a product of leaving comments on other blogs and the tags. So I guess directories just gave a very small help in regards to link backs and traffic.
Anyway, just passin by through entrecard 🙂
see you around 🙂
Directories are one way of getting quality inbound links to your website. It's not a good source of direct traffic as you said. Submitting your site to good and high-PR directories is one way of getting quality links that are highly valued by the search engines. Web directories are mainly human edited, thus a website must pass a strict criteria to get listed, hence quality links are only listed. These links are search engine friendly. Since they are organized in highly focused categories making them an invaluable resource for search engines to measure the quality and the relevance of a website.
Ah that makes sense. Thanks for the schoolin'
I know what does work well.
Visit high profile forums, not necessarily in your own niche
and introduce yourself, ask a few 'sensible' questions, or
contribute in some other 'non-intrusive way'.
Always try and have a 'live link' in the signature file and
'Hey Presto' your blog starts appearing in the most unlikely
places in the search engines, and traffic follows as long as
'your' forum subject, or the forum subject you contribute to
has an interesting enough subject line.
Good luck,
Pete
That's some good advice… thanks for sharing Pete!
Directories are good for getting the SE's to crawl your site. They are not good for getting direct visitors from the links. Think of it like this how many times have you went to a directory to find something you are looking for? I doubt you have even used a directory, but instead used a search engine. Having your site listed has helped your placement in the SE's, but even that may not have helped much. I personally use directories, but not those ones that require some sort of payment or a link back to be listed.
This is a timely writeup, at least for the website I'm working for. I was tasked to exchange links with other related sites. And I've listed the site in at least three directories already. Glad I found this post, and have benefitted already with the info.
Thanks,
Cib
Glad you found this informative!