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Blog Homepage : Category - 1. Link Building Basics

More often than not, the typical link building scenario starts with a paid Yahoo! directory submission, a free DMOZ submission and perhaps a paid Business.com submission if it suits the client.

But DMOZ can offer so much more to you, even if your site isn’t accepted or, more typically, takes months to get listed.

In this article, I introduce you to the other link building opportunities available using DMOZ.

When an SEO uses DMOZ, also known as the Open Directory Project, they do so expecting their submission to take months to review.  But, it’s something you have to do because of the little boost it will give your Google rankings.  This is because Google uses the DMOZ data in its own directory.

But there’s more to DMOZ than just a location to submit for a good text link.  In fact, there’s a whole world of data out there just waiting to be exploited.  So why not do it?  It’s freely available but it isn’t used too often by SEO’s.

So how do you use DMOZ to build links?

It’s quite simple really.

First, let’s start at the home page and browse to the Internet section. Notice the second link there – searching?  Click on it.  What do you see?

What I see is the potential for 1,333 directory links and a further 334 search engine submissions.

Now, granted not all the directories will apply to your site, nor will all the search engines accept your submission.  But, even if you acquired just 10% of each, that’s and additional 130 links and 33 search engine listings, just for submitting.

Also, if you hope to achieve a global presence, you will notice there is a large number of non-English search engines available to submit to.

But wait, there’s more.

There’s also web portals which generally have a directory or search engine of their own.  There’s also online communities which sometimes have a search or directory feature of their own.

And let’s not forget why we submit to the ODP in the first place.  While it’s true that it has a direct impact on Google, there are almost 400 other sites which also use ODP data that the ODP tells you about.  And again, there are non-English sites also using ODP data.

But there’s still more.

The ODP allows you to do keyword searches.  Using keyword searches you can find other sites which could potentially rank in regular search engines for your terms.

If you search for your terms you can gather a list of sites that already have ODP listings and then go to Google, Yahoo! and MSN and query the engines for their backlinks, providing yet another source of link requests.

For example, if I search for “search engine marketing” I see that there are 1188 matches.  Granted some aren’t competitors, but there are a few sites I’ve never heard of before.

So, in addition to gathering some competitive intelligence about the competitors, I can also check to see what their backlink potential is and also see if they’ve managed to find links I hadn’t considered before.

Let’s look at some of the potential link sources we’ve found already:

-almost 1200 potential directories
-almost 350 potential search engine submissions
-175 web communities and portals which may accept submissions
-over 400 sites using ODP data

Plus, who knows how many competitors you may not have previously identified.

And all this from the directory that much of the SEO community has given up on.

It is a shame, isn’t it?

Rob Sullivan is a SEO Consultant and Writer for Textlinkbrokers.com. Textlinkbrokers is the trusted leader in building long term rankings through safe and effective link building. Please provide a link directly to Textlinkbrokers when syndicating this article.