Can Directories Boost My Online Presence?

Adding your company to a directory is one of the many ways that you can get your website indexed by search engines! Whilst not the most important step in boosting your online presence, getting your website indexed is a great step for appearing on search engines like Google.

How Does This Work?

Your website gets ranked based on a number of different reasons. One of these is the quantity and quality of backlinks which link into your website. Usually good quality backlinks from high domain authority websites will help boost your domain authority, as an important website is linking out to you. Poor quality backlinks in abundance can be seen as spammy which can go some way to reduce your ranking. 

When you put your company URL into a directory, the URL is usually registered as a link which leads back to your site. Depending on the ranking of the directory site, the link with vary in its usefulness, but generally most directories are a low to medium quality when it comes to back links. They might be low quality at times but a directory link is very rarely spammy, so in general it’s worth taking the time to put your site in there. I’ll get into how to check on the strength of these directories a little later on. 

Directories Can Boost Keyword Relevancy For Your Website

A lot of companies copy the About section of their website into their company description on directory sites. This can be a huge problem. Google and quite a few other search engines absolutely hate duplicated and copied information. The best thing to do is rewrite your descriptions so that there aren’t issues caused by duplicate information when it comes to registering your site or the directory. 

If you have a business: Let’s say you own a law firm. Your site information details all of the legal practices you deal with as a company. You should include this information in the directory link whilst changing around your sentence structure and not copying the information directly. You’ll want to write about 750 to 1000 words on the directory information section. This way your site has a page that talks about law and these specific services and that links to a page which talks about law and your services. Due to the pages being relevant to each other, whilst containing a different information structure, the link is classified as having a much higher value than if you got a link from a page that taught you how to make chocolate smoothies, or a copied information dump.

Traffic And Directories

Traffic might not necessarily come from some directories, however there are some situations where directories are exceptionally powerful and useful. TripAdvisor (https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk) is immensely powerful and having your company on there can really benefit it. Of course the main strength of tripadvisor powers restaurants and hotels. It’s a niche website dedicated to travel, so it might not necessarily apply to your business, however a backlink from their website may really help your company.

TripAdvisor is a site which a lot of people use and it gives people what they need. They want to find out which restaurants are good in a certain area, so they look them up on TripAdvisor and this can lead to an influx of traffic from the directory onto your website, which will benefit your site and your business.

Another example of a decent website to get your company on would be Yelp. (https://www.yelp.co.uk/)  Yelp gets a lot less traffic than TripAdvisor and will get less organic traffic in but you may still get some if you put enough information on there. Yelp can be use for just about any business and is worth getting your site on.

Things To Do In Clacton (http://thingstodoinclacton.co.uk/) is a local directory which works with companies in Clacton, it’s part of a growing franchise called Things To Do In Ltd. The structure and design of their website is different from most directories and the amount of local power they have grown is exceptional, whilst their domain authority isn’t the most powerful local directory in the world their keywording gets them hundreds of click throughs to local companies on their directory per week, so some smaller directories can be exceptionally powerful!

Low To No Cost

There are quite a few local directories that are low to no cost, which means that they won’t break the bank for you. Whilst most of them are free there are some which are worth paying for. Sometimes they offer a deal where you won’t have to pay for your back link if you link back to them which is really great, and a good way of supporting those websites that help you out!

We cannot recommend any site as a great site to pay for a link back from as we can never guarantee that the site will help you significantly, but anything you can get a free link from is worth the few minutes it takes to sign up and account!

Business Linking

Did you know that there’s a local business out there that might want to work with you? Let’s say you run a greengrocers. By using a local directory you can quickly and easily find restaurants in the local area that you can contact to try and offer a deal to if they use you for your vegetables. Who doesn’t like fresh vegetables? You never know, you might be found by a restaurant owner who needs fresh vegetables because you added yourself to a directory and your competition didn’t, so it can be beneficial for linking with other businesses too!

How Do I Know If This Directory Will Help Me?

At Fantasoft, the company I run, we use use an exceptional tool called Mozbar for Google Chrome which can be gained here for free. (https://moz.com/products/pro/seo-toolbar) It’s a brilliant tool and we highly recommend it! Once you have it installed you can see the ranking of sites marked as their DA score. This score stands for Domain Authority which is Moz’s rank for their websites based on a number of factors including backlinks. The sites rank between 1 and 100 on a logarithmic scale with it being harder to advance in number the higher your DA is.

Any site with a Domain Authority higher than yours is generally good site to get a backlink from. When it comes to directories, it’s always good to go for a domain authority of 20 or higher. These will help your website no matter what your personal Domain Authority is.

There is a an additional secret to finding out if directories can help, and this works for any website: Check this link out for information on Dofollow and Nofollow links. It will give you an invaluable tool!

Should I Use Directories?

So many bloggers out there insist that getting backlinks from directories is absolutely vital. Personally I wonder sometimes if they are secretly directory owners! A backlink from a decent directory is generally a good thing to have, though rarely worth paying for. For any free directories, it’s worth investing the time and energy into adding yourself into any directory you find, but I feel a lot of the time the value of signing up for directories is overstated.

For restaurants and other travel/hotel websites, I would say that TripAdvisor is integral. For any businesses including restaurants and travel/hotel websites, Yelp is also a great one to get added to. It’s something that won’t hurt your website and it is worth the time. It won’t change the entire world, but it’s one small step to getting your website to rank higher than other sites. The best way to stand out is to make sure you have a great site and amazing content.