WHY choose the UK for web hosting?

Directories - the better ones! Get more backlinks

Directories - the better ones! Get more backlinks

Marketing a website is a time consuming continual task for any new or existing owner/webmaster. One of the most important marketing tasks is maintaining and improving your PageRank (PR). To do this means gaining relevant (related to your content/subject matter) good quality links back to your website. A good way to gain those links back is by giving something away free, or using viral marketing (publishing a controversial video for example) then you will have many other sites mentioning your website.

For those that do not have something to give away free (or your freebies have all gone), and your marketing tactics caused nothing more than a sniffle then don't despair as there are directories where you should list your website. But this IS VERY TIME consuming as you need to check each directory properly before adding you link. You must at least check the directory is not a banned by Google.

Also you should verify for yourself that the quality is good, the PR is worth your time submitting (if its less 4/10 then it probably will is not worth your time), cost is right, and a relevant section/category exists for your business type.

Below are several directories which I consider to be good and reliable (at least at the time of posting). Feel free to check them out before submitting. I have added the PR=Google PageRank, and BL=back links (correct at date of publishing) to help you evaluate each directory. Those in bold are the best of the best bunch.

(note that details are correct as of April 2007, quality of each site could improve or decrease over time, you should check for yourself before using any of the sites listed below)

Directories - free listings:
http://dmoz.org (free PR8 BL: 3190000)
http://www.joeant.com (free PR6 BL: 8770)
http://www.iozoo.com (free PR6 BL: 12600)

Directories with reciprocal link required:
http://ww.mostpopularsites.net (PR5 BL: 18200)
http://www.haabaa.com (PR6 BL: 148000)
http://www.webmasterschannel.com (PR6 BL: 17300)
http://searchsight.com (PR5 BL: 25900)
http://www.businessplexus.com (PR4 BL: 12300)


Directories - Paid listings: (cost shown is per year, but check each site yourself)
http://www.elib.org (cost 50EUR PR7 BL: 57900)
http://www.greenstalk.com (cost $9pa PR4 BL: 3740)
http://www.wizdirectory.com (cost $10PR4 BL: 408)
http://www.webxperience.org (cost $10 PR6 BL: 14500)
http://www.alivedirectory.com/ (cost $34.95pa PR7 BL: 894000)
http://www.incrawler.com (cost $25 PR6 BL: 16200)
http://sbd.bcentral.com/ (cost $49pa PR6 BL: 1570)
http://www.joeant.com/ (cost $40 PR6 BL: 8770)
http://www.incrawler.com (cost $25 PR6 BL: 16200)
http://www.webotopia.org (cost $10 PR6 BL: 2500)
http://www.abifind.com (cost $10 PR5 BL: 3700)
http://www.elegantdirectory.com (cost $35 PR6 BL: 80300)
http://www.dirarchive.com (cost $25 PR6 BL: 31500)
http://dir.yahoo.com (cost $299 PR8 BL: 85600 - IMO not worth it!)

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There are a whole load more here: http://www.123promotion.co.uk/directorymanager/ but you will need to sift through the tosh!

Know any more that are dependable? Post it now...

Labels: backlinks, directories, links, pagerank

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Google - Importance of inbound links (links from other sites to yours)

The more Google trusts your website the more traffic you will get. So you need to increase that trust.

But how do you improve Google's evaluation/trust in your website and pages?

Simple - increase your IBL (inbound links), but ensure each link is of good quality and relevant.


Quality:
Before trading links with a website ensure you check them out. Check their PR and IBL. If its not high enough do not link back to them.
You can check this here:
http://www.microsoft-watch.org/cgi-bin/ranking.htm

Relevance:
You need to get links from relevant websites (with related content, and subject matter), you can only do this by manually checking the website yourself. Take a few minutes to check the content yourself, is it of reasonable quality? And check it is not just a website of links.

Keywords:
Ensure you use the most optimised keywords for your product. This is very important when building your IBL. You should offer your prospective link site something like the following:
<!-- Link Code --><a href="http://uk-web-hosting-why.blogspot.com/">WHY choose the UK for web hosting</a> - information on UK web hosting.<br /><!-- Link Code -->
Note the keywords are within the anchor text, here the words: WHY choose the UK for web hosting.
Spending a little time here to correctly choose your keywords will pay-off for a long time into the future, so take your time ;-)

Other things to avoid:
- link farms, never add your link to these sites, you could get banned as well as the link farm.
- linking to foreign sites (unless you need international traffic, link to your indigenous neighbours; read details on why you should host in your native country here).

Work on your IBL and you will see your PR rise and in turn your keyword relevance. This will eventually lead to more traffic to your website as Google sees your site as more relevant than others for your chosen keywords.

Hope you found that helpful? If not, or want to add your input then please post your comments below...

Labels: directories, native hosting, real UK host

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