If you’ve been marketing for a while then you know that before the panda hit, article directories just dominated Google results. For pretty much any keyword you could take an articlebase or ezinearticle link and jump it into the top 10 results in a day or two. It was a great way to test out a new potential niche, drive a lot of traffic to your website, and even put affiliate links directly into your articles and make some money with next to no work involved. Yes, these were the glory days for marketing, but all good things with Google seem to come to an end sooner or later.

So if you can’t rely on article directories to get your easy traffic, are they still worth using? Definitely. I’ve read post after post on the Warrior Forums and other places where marketers are advising people not to use article directories anymore because they aren’t selling. But the truth is, unless you are using article directories specifically for affiliate links, they are still very useful.

What’s great is that most article directories will let you publish your blog posts from your website so you don’t even need to write completely unique content to use them.

Article Directories Build Great Backlinks

I don’t care what anyone tells you, article directories (specifically ezinearticles and articlebase) are awesome sources for high quality backlinks. They are both PR6 websites, and any link on a PR6 site – even low down the chain – is pretty valuable. In my Google Webmaster account when I look up the highest quality backlinks to any of my sites, both these article directories consistently show up in the top domains linking to me.

You Can Customize Your Anchor Text

The other great part about using article directories to build backlinks is the ability to specify your anchor text. Both Ezinearticles and Articlebase allow you to put links directly in your copy and specify the anchor text. And to top it off, the links in the copy are all dofollow – which makes them worth something.

It’s Easy to Get Syndicated

When building backlinks to a website, it’s always best to get a wide variety of links coming in from multiple different domains. When you post articles, other people have the ability to syndicate – or repost them – on their site as long as they retain the backlinks and give credit to the author.

Every time I post an article on articlebase or ezinearticles I always get at least 1 repost within a month of it being published. If the blog posts on your website don’t already get reposted by other sites, this is a great way to start syndicating right away.

While auto-blogging is not really useful post-panda, the ability for people to syndicate your articles and have your links stay in the copy is a great way to build a wide variety of links. These articles act as a way to build a variety of backlinks on auto-pilot.

You Can Build Status and Name Recognition

The more articles you write for these sites, the more they will feature your work as an author. Specifically with EzineArticles, if you get to diamond level membership they will repost your articles constantly, feature your profile on the homepage, and make your articles more attractive to syndicators.

Half the battle of building a successful business online is being regarded as a guru in your niche. Having a high profile account on these article directories is an easy way to demonstrate your guru status. People want to listen to and buy from people who are successful in their field and a high status profile is a good way to promote yourself as an expert.

You Can Still Get Visitors from Article Directories

Even though they are delivering the same amount of traffic they once did, article directories can still direct traffic to your sites. Especially if you have a high profile account, you can still get a decent amount or traffic from article directories to your site.

For some of my sites, I see around 200-500 hits a month from EzineArticles and Articlebase. These accounts have dozens of articles and are high profile accounts but they do deliver traffic. Even if your website has about a 1% conversion rate this would still be about 2-5 sales a month, and depending on the product, it’s worth the extra effort to post your articles on there.

“An indexing and retrieval method that uses a mathematical technique called Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) to identify patterns in the relationships between the terms and concepts contained in an unstructured collection of text.”

If that sounds confusing, it’s because it is. I prefer to call LSI keywords by my own acronym:

Low

Search

Impact

I call them Low Search Impact because an LSI keyword is not your focus keyword. You might receive search results for them – which you can check through Google Analytics – but they are not the focus of your campaign. While they might be low search impact, but they definitely have an important role in good on-page optimization.

Now, what does that mean? Well, when I write an article, or copy for a page, I always put search engine optimization first; no matter what. I need to have good on-page SEO and properly optimized content; if nobody is going to see it and it doesn’t help my website, why would I post it? Does that mean that I’m going to stuff my pages full of keywords? No, not only do Google and other search engines recognize and penalize keyword stuffing, but you won’t be doing your readers any favors. I use keywords when I write (I used quite a bit in this article) but I use them where they don’t distract.

LSI keywords are a great companion to your focus keyword no matter where you use them – whether it’s an article submission, blog post, homepage content, whatever it might be; you need them. So now you’re probably wondering, “where do I find these LSI keywords?” Well, that’s the good news, they are incredibly easy to find, the best free lsi keyword tool is a lot closer than you might think.

If you use the Google Keyword tool, every time you put in a set of keywords or a singular keyword you are given their “keyword ideas”. Well that list is LSI keywords. Google is literally telling you what keywords it takes into account when searching for your main keywords. Take a look at the results the Google keywords tool spits out, they relate pretty closely to your main keyword, they might contain alternate spellings or wordings, sometimes they might be different terms completely, but one thing is for sure; they are all related.

So how do you use them – you’ll have to wait for a future article detailing that – but in short: a variety of them should be used, a lot lighter than your main keyword, and liberally enough to be recognized but not penalized.

A smart marketer will sprinkle these keywords in every piece of content they write. To search engines (and Google in particular) an lsi keyword is associated with your main keyword and they will take those terms into account when ranking a particular page. So by sprinkling these terms in your content and articles, you are creating a more attractive page; which will certainly help with your search results.

You will no doubt have some issues trying to use these lsi keywords, and you might have to get creative. For example, one of my LSI keywords for this article was “what is lsi”, if you look back at the 1st paragraph, you can see how I fit that in without causing too much of a distraction.

Now LSI keywords and on-page content are not the only tools when it comes to search engine optimization, but they are a huge part of the process and extremely crucial. You can send thousands of links to a page, but if it doesn’t have properly optimized content it’s going to be a lot more difficult to be ranked highly in the SERPS. And without LSI keywords your content will not be as highly rewarded and important to the search engines.

So now that you know what they are and how to find them, can you tell how many LSI keywords I included in this article?

There is nothing better for a website than a high authority link. A couple great links can lift a website from obscurity to ranking well in the serps in a very short amount of time. Although links can be a great thing, it’s important to remember that bad links can harm your website as much as good ones can help them.

As search engines get smarter, the serps become more and more filtered with quality results. It’s no longer a viable option to just buy a bunch of links and hope for good results. The most powerful links today are gained organically and bring a good amount of quality traffic to your site. Remember the word quality because it’s the most important thing about your web traffic. You could get 100s or 1,000s of visits a day but unless those visits are coming from quality sources and actual people, they don’t mean anything. Search engines are looking more and more at the quality, consistency, and longevity of traffic to a website when they compile their results.

Most Bad Links Are Paid for.
It’s sad but true. You will want to avoid bad links like the plague and the most common place to find them is by paying for them. There is an awesome article by randfish from SEOmoz that explains how link building has changed. While I don’t agree with him that buying links is entirely a bad thing; it definitely pays to be cautious.

Don’t use link building services
It’s so tempting. There’s a site offering hundreds, possibly thousands of links for a mere $100. They promise you the links aren’t bad, they even claim most of the sites have a PR between 1 and 4. Sounds too good to be true; that’s because it is. What these services don’t tell you is that some (if not most) of the places your link will end up are in the bad part of town – the javascript-trojan-spam-fest part of the web.

Submit to Directories but be Cautious
Directories can be a great source of high quality back links but you’ll want to avoid submitting haphazardly to any directory you come across. Long term SEO goals should not rely on directory submissions, they are however, a good way to build page strength and quality back links quickly. Here are a few great tips to remember when submitting to directories:

What Makes a Good Directory?
Here are some quick things to keep in mind when looking at a directory for a potential back link.

What’s the Page and Domain Strength
Check the strength of the page your link will be appearing, is it worth having a back link? Is it worth paying for that link? Check the page and domain strength (I recommend Linkscape) and find out whether or not this link will be valuable.

Is the Site Indexed?
Always make sure your link will be indexed by search engines. If it’s not, don’t submit. If they don’t recognize it, the link is pretty much worthless; especially if you paying for it. Here’s a simple trick to find out whether or not your link will be indexed:

Type site:http://www.yourwebsite.com in any search engine and find out if it’s being indexed.

How much Advertising do they have?
Directories with so many ads that it becomes cumbersome to navigate (there are tons of these) are not worth links. You’ll find that the best directories online (free and paid) don’t have that many ads; sometimes they have none. It’s not a coincidence.

Do they List Adult Sites?
If a directory lists adult sites (unless it’s a large and prominent directory) don’t list your site there; unless of course you’re promoting an adult site. It’s always a good idea to remain in family friendly directories, the links are typically worth more and there is no possible guilt by association.

Avoid Auto Approval Directories
A good rule of thumb when submitting to directories is to make sure that they are human edited. If all sites are accepted, chances are your link won’t be worth much. Search Engines put more emphasis on directories which are human edited and actually try to avoid auto-submit directories.

Avoid Free Directories
In my experience, most free directories are not well edited. Most are used in hopes of generating traffic to click on their ads and make a few dollars for the webmaster; they’re mostly junk sites. But that’s not to say that there aren’t great free directories online, they’re just usually hard to find. The truth is, I’ve probably spent more time removing bad free directory links then I’ve ever had gaining good free directory links.

Here are some great free directories I’ve come across:

DMOZ

Simply put, this is the best directory online. If you can actually manage to secure a link here, it will significantly boost your page and domain strength. Be aware, the wait for link approval is beyond long and it’s highly political. So don’t count on your site being linked here, but if it is, be happy.

Pegasus Directory

This is a great human edited free and paid directory. They have almost no advertising and have great domain and page strength. Their free approvals can be very long (up to 6 months) but they only list quality sites.

Web World

No advertising, human edited, great page strength.

Little Web Directory

No ads, human edited decent page strength.

Best Web Directories provides a great list of free directories online.

Listen to the Search Engines
Google, Bing, and Yahoo constantly give out information in interviews, blogs, and other sources which explains parts of their ranking process. In a great article by Chris Crum over at WebProNews, he talks about the dos and don’ts of link building for Bing with Rick DeJarnette of Bing’s Webmaster Center. The interview provides a great layout of what makes a website successful in today’s serps.

Be in Control of Your Links
The easiest way to avoid bad links is to know where your site is being linked. Keeping a constant watch of your back links is a great way to make sure your site isn’t ending up in the wrong part of town.

Google Webmaster Tools provides a great free service for your website which can check your back links recognized by Google.

Domain Inbound Links Checker is a really great tool that picks up on links a lot of other services don’t. (no anchor text in the results).

Backlink Watch is another great tool and picks up a lot of backlinks other tools don’t, but they have a lot of ads and the results are kind of slow (they display the anchor text).

“Historically, we haven’t had to use it in our search rankings, but a lot of people within Google think that the web should be fast,” says Cutts. “It should be a good experience, and so it’s sort of fair to say that if you’re a fast site, maybe you should get a little bit of a bonus. If you really have an awfully slow site, then maybe users don’t want that as much.” Cutts says. “I think a lot of people in 2010 are going to be thinking more about ‘how do I have my site be fast,’ how do I have it be rich without writing a bunch of custom javascript?’”

This is nothing but good news, I think sites that load quickly should be rewarded in the SERPS. Good hosting and programming provide a better experience to visitors. It’s becoming increasingly clear that seo and website design are becoming the same industry. If you’re not building a website with seo in mind you’re not building it right.

Even though Google hasn’t changed anything yet, they have already created a Google code resource center aimed at making the web “faster”. This seems to be a clear indication that speed will be a bigger issue in seo in the next year.

What are your thoughts?

What’s great about “dofollow” blogs is that if you include your url, search engines will count it for backlink purposes; it’s a free and great way to get high quality backlinks.

It works like any other search engine. Type in a phrase and the results are a bunch of dofollow blogs. I’ve seen some suspect sites, but the majority of the results are quality content. It’s rare, but I have come across a couple nofollow blogs; but they do have a form to add a dofollow blog or report a nofollow blog.

They also offer a comment submission service:

• $19.99 for 100 Comments
• $44.99 for 250 Comments
• $83.99 for 500 Comments

I haven’t personally tried it so I can’t recommend it, but I’ve read mixed things. Here is a great review from Essential SEO Tools & Resources.

Be warned, most of the blog owners actually read and approve your comments, so providing quality content will be the only way to get approved. One thing I have noticed is that most of the search results will begin to repeat themselves, leading me to believe that they’re really aren’t as many blogs being searched as you might think.

I’d be interested to know if anyone has had a positive experience with their paid comment service. Anyone else have any good “dofollow” blog resources?

But with the thousands, if not millions of directories online, which are the most valuable to link to?

Here are a few quick tips to help determine a valuable directory:

1. Determine the Page Strength

And I’m not just talking about Google PageRank. It’s been known for awhile that the simplified PageRank (which is most commonly seen in the Google Toolbar) is not actually your real PageRank; that is a much more complex number kept by Google. Although don’t delete your toolbar just yet, PageRank can be a good first impression. If a directory, especially a paid one, has a PR below 2, chances are it’s not worth the link.

*Just recently Google removed PageRank from its Webmaster Tools (full story from WebProNews).

Another common form of page ranking is the Alexa Ranking System. Like Google PageRank, it’s more of a safety net than a valuable resource, but generally directories which fall below the 100,000 mark on the Alexa scale are going to be worthy of a link.

I prefer to use the LinkScape tool over at seomoz to determine Page Strength. It provides more detailed data than both Google PageRank and the Alexa Ranking. They offer a number of free tools, but if you’re serious about pursuing SEO, you should definitely sign up for a PRO account.

Here are some things to keep in mind when evaluating Page Strength:

Don’t Just Check the Page Strength of the Home Page
Is your link going to be placed on the homepage of the directory? Chances are no.

Check the Page Strength to the Page Your Linking To
Before submitting a link, find the page on the directory where your link will appear. Look to see how the links are organized (a lot of them do it by PR, some sort on a first-come-first-serve basis; others have a bidding system, etc.). If you’re link is going to end up on a low ranking page of a directory, you probably shouldn’t submit. It’s true the overall strength of the domain will help build your link strength, but the page your link appears on is more important than anything else.

2. How Many Links Are On the Page

How many other links are on the page you’re link will be on?

Too many links on a page can negatively affect their value. If you’re link is going to be added to a page with 100 other links, unless that page has an incredibly high Page Strength, you’re not going to be seeing much benefit.

Stick to directories and categories with a low number of links per page and high Page Strength. Many times you can list your site in a sub-category, or a similar category that contains less links and decent page strength.

3. Is the Directory Indexed?

Is the directory you’re submitting to index by Google, Yahoo, and Bing? If it’s not, it’s pretty much worthless. The only way those links are going to count is if Google, Yahoo, or Bing, says they do.

Here is a nifty trick to see if a site is indexed. Use this string in any search engine:site:http://www.yourwebsite.com the results will be which pages the search engine has indexed.

Google’s Webmaster Tools can provide excellent data on which of your back links are being recognized by Google. A single directory submission can result in a number of quality back links.

4. Use Keywords in the Anchor Text

Adding keywords to your anchor text is highly encouraged, so finding a directory that allows you to use keywords in your anchor text is a definite plus.

A lot of higher profile directories won’t allow you to put anything but your business name in the anchor text, but most of the smaller or mid-ranged directories (that still maintain good Page Strength) will allow you to place keywords and descriptive titles in your anchor text.

Example:

Good Listing: Search Engine Optimization Orange County

Bad Listing: Omikron Media

5. Expensive Directories Aren’t Always the Best Source of Links

It’s true. The most valuable links sometimes come from the most inexpensive sources.

While I would definitely recommend some high end directories like Yahoo or Best of the Web, some of your most valuable back links can be generated from lesser known and much more inexpensive directories.

The Yahoo Directory ($299 annually) can provide dozens – in some cases hundreds – of quality back links from a single submission. Best of the Web ($299.95 one-time) can provide multiple, high quality back links.

The absolute best directory online for quality back links doesn’t cost anything at all; although getting listed in there is quite a challenge. DMOZ is the largest and most respected human edited directory on the internet; it’s also free. Except getting a link approved could take months, sometimes years, and sometimes never.

6. Purchase Featured Listings

If you’re listing to a directory, especially an inexpensive one, consider purchasing a featured listing. I know a lot of directories will claim that this leads to more traffic to your site, but it really doesn’t. Don’t kid yourself, nobody uses directories for search results; they’re used to build quality back links.

Sometimes the difference of a few dollars can buy a lot more than a single link. Many directories will place featured listings on every page of their selected category; meaning multiple quality back links.

7. Submit Deep Links Where Available

Deep Links are links to your website other than the index page. Every page of your website has the opportunity to rank well in search results, so when you get the chance to submit one, do it.

Some inexpensive directories will allow deep links with a standard or featured listing, take advantage of these offers when available, never deny the opportunity to submit deep links.

Great Inexpensive Directories

Here are some great inexpensive directories to list to. All the directories listed below are indexed by search engines and provide quality links.

Omikron Media LLC is not affiliated with any of the directories listed below.

Directory Vault

This is a great inexpensive directory that provides SEO friendly back links that are quickly indexed by Google. Submissions are approved within 8 hours and your links can be indexed a few days after listing. Their “Network Power Listing” ($8.99) submits your link to 6 different directories contained in their network; very much worth a submission.

Pro Link Directory

This is another great inexpensive directory that provides SEO friendly links and the option to add three additional deep links. Their “Lifetime Top Regular Link” ($19) ensures that your link will appear on the first page of your category. They also offer the option to add three deep links to a submission for an additional $10. Submissions are approved very quickly and their pages are indexed weekly, if not daily, by Google.

Omega 55

Featured listings with 3 deep links are only $9.94. Their submissions are approved quickly and indexed by search engines.

Smebd Directory

This small business directory offers quality back links for cheap ($5.99). Their links are approved quickly and they are indexed.

Azook Directory

While I wouldn’t recommend this directory over Pro Link, Omega 55, or Directory Vault, they are still worth submitting a link to. They don’t have many submissions per category, but the strength per page is pretty good. Their submission process is quick and the pages are indexed. Standard listings are $12.95, they do not offer deep links.

Blog Pulse (http://www.blogpulse.com)

Blog Pulse is a Nielson rating’s system for Blogs. Using their trend tool: http://www.blogpulse.com/trend simply place your keywords into the selected fields and see what comes up. (make sure to use quotes on each search term, ex. “drivers ed”)

Once you input your keywords and display label, you’ll be able to see just how popular your subject has been over the past few months. Click on the search results field to get actual blog posts that have used your keywords. Read their posts to find out what people are talking about and how you can contribute.

Technorati (http://www.technorati.com)

Technorati is a mix between Digg and Blog Pulse. It’s a social bookmarking service like Digg, but also a great Blog search engine like Blog Pulse.

Signing up for an account let’s you track your Blog as well as bookmark your posts. Technorati compiles information from blogs and press releases; it can be a very valuable resource.

Monitter (http://www.monitter.com)

If you use Twitter then it’s no doubt you’ve seen the trending topics tab. While this can be a useful tool in discovering popular subjects, it doesn’t provide much detailed information.

Monniter offers a way to track Tweets by subject and region through real-time feeds. Find out what people are saying in your area, about your business, right now.

Twendz (http://www.twendz.com)

Twendz is a lot like Monitter, except you can search only by subject and not by region. Find out what people are Twittering about in your subject area and respond accordingly. Detailed information is given on the popularity of the subject, the frequency of posts, and sub-topics.

Board Tracker (http://www.boardtracker.com)

Board Tracker is a search engine for message boards all around the internet. This is another great resource for monitoring popular subjects and even what customers might be saying about your products.

Message boards and Forums are still a very popular way for people to connect with one-another online. Having that personal communication is always an invaluable resource for gaining awareness about your website, products, or blog.