What Directories are Best to Register your Blog?
Posted in Real Estate Bloggers By Eliese Pivarnik, Sunday, April 27, 2008.I recently took a hit in rankings with Google, so I'm working on ways to get my site back up on the front pages.
From reading discussions on Inman and other blogs, I now know I need to concentrate on getting backlinks from commenting and directories.
What are the best directories (like dzom.org) to register a real estate blog?
Thanks,
Eliese Pivarnik
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Submitted by Jay Thompson on April 27, 2008 - 10:52pm.
Eliese -
DMOZ can take *forever* to get listed in. It's all hand-edited and can literally take months and months, if you get listed at all.
Commenting for back links doesn't always work. Many blogs are "no follow" blogs -- meaning the URLs in the comments are not followed by search engines. There is also the issue of Page Rank and passage of PR.
Commenting CAN help you network with and build relationships with other bloggers, which is often a good thing -- but commenting for the sake of back links is mostly a futile effort.
There are no quick fixes to get back links. The best back links are "organic" -- people linking to you naturally. Typically this happens because someone notices something you write and links to it -- because it's compelling, informative, or whatever -- and they think it will provide value to their readers.
Writing good, compelling and fresh content over time is the best way to build back links.
Directories can help some. Mary McKnight posted a good list. I don't always agree with everything Mary says, but she's a sharp cookie and certainly wouldn't post any "bad neighborhood" directories (and there are some directories that will not only not help you, they can hurt you).
Mary's list:
http://www.rsspieces.com/backlink-building-lab-top-30-free-backlinks-of-...
Jay Thompson
Broker / Owner
Thompson's Realty
Blog: www.PhoenixRealEstateGuy.com
.
Submitted by G Dewald | Union Street Media on April 28, 2008 - 7:23am.
I'm with Jay on this one.
Best thing you can do for backlinks is write good content and comment on other blogs in the spirit of contributing to a dialogue. I always tell people to think of comments like you would a cocktail party (unless you're that person at the cocktail party who hands out the business card before shaking hands and getting to know someone).
As far as general SEO rank-dropping, if you're fairly new you might have been sandboxed (Google waits a bit before it lets you dominate a search term). Just keep writing good content related to your search term and contributing to the conversations out there and your SEO will improve. Working SEO can be a long-term process and it is always an ongoing process.
Another possibility is that the Google updated its algorithm but I highly doubt it.
G. Dewald | Union Street Media | USM Blog
Submitted by G Dewald | Union Street Media on April 28, 2008 - 7:50am.
I was thinking about the Google update and then figured I should put the caveat that if you noticed the difference between a date before April 2 and after April 2 then it could be the Dewey Update but I still would lean more on the sandbox than Google algorithm. And either way you can climb back through taking the advice offered above.
G. Dewald | Union Street Media | USM Blog
Submitted by Eliese Pivarnik on April 28, 2008 - 7:56am.
Eliese Pivarnik, Steamboat Springs Real Estate Broker Associate
www.SteamboatHomeSales.com
Jay, I not only printed Mary's suggestions you referred to but her 125 Legitimate Link Building Strategies at www.searchengineworkshops.com/articles/leglinkpop.html
G, the difference definitely occurred after April 2. I was enjoying a nice stream of quality leads until then. Now my site is coming up dry.
Also, I've had it over a year with results coming after 8 months. Is that considered "new"?
Submitted by G Dewald | Union Street Media on April 28, 2008 - 8:09am.
Eight months is too old for the sandbox, could be Dewey Update.
But the action steps to improve are still the same. :) or :( depending on how much you enjoy blogging.
G. Dewald | Union Street Media | USM Blog
Submitted by Ryan Horne on May 5, 2008 - 8:03am.
I am working on getting backlinks too and have been posting in many forums. I have ran in to the no follow problem.
I am sure some of you know how to check for the nofollow tag is the source code, but for those that don't and want to build backlinks through forums and blog posts here is a way to find out.
Go to the post page where the comments are at. You can find out if the nofollow is on by right clicking your mouse and then selecting the "view source" link on the right click menu. This will open a notepad with the HTML source code of that webpage.
On the notepad click on the "Edit" link in the top left corner. On the edit menu select "Find". A search box will then popup. In the test box enter "nofollow" without the "" and no space between no and follow. All one word nofollow. Then click "find next".
If the no follow tag is active it will be highlited on the notepad as to where it is. If it is not then a box will come up and read "cannot find nofollow."
Sometimes the tag will be found on other links in the code other then the comments. If you can read through the HTML you can find if it is attached to the comments or not. If you can't read the code just skip it and move on.
Now of course it is still a good idea to comment on things even with the nofollow tag active. That is the purpose of forums and blogs, to share info and ideas. So if there is a good post comment anyway and have some fun.
I hope that helps some of the newbies looking to improve links and page rank.
Ryan Horne
Delaware REALTOR
http://delrealestateonline.com
http://delrealestateonline.com/blog
Submitted by G Dewald | Union Street Media on May 5, 2008 - 8:36am.
Definitely, if you're going for backlinks you should focus your efforts on sites that do not have a "nofollow." However, I know of several sites that do very well from their links in wikipedia even though wikipedia has "nofollow." Trusting souls are always better than the cold cold touch of the search engine spider.
Also there's an extensive discussion of nofollow over at the Bloodhound blog.
The comment thread alone is a good primer on social media and some great SEO tips. I sifted through the comments on that post and made a "syllabus" for a one year web course that could be learned by reading that post.
G. Dewald | Union Street Media | USM Blog
Submitted by Jay Thompson on May 5, 2008 - 8:37am.
Ryan -
*Great* instructions, thanks!
If anyone uses Firefox (which beats the pants off Internet Explorer) there is a great extension that you can use to highlight NoFollow links.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/321
Install it, and you can easily toggle nofollow highlight on and off with two mouse clicks.
Jay Thompson
Broker / Owner
Thompson's Realty
Blog: www.PhoenixRealEstateGuy.com
.