Search Engines measure your web site’s credibility in terms of its perceived importance by other websites, which is shown whenever web sites link to your web site. Therefore, acquiring inbound links is vital to achieving a prominent position in the Search Engines. Of course, one-way links from reputable, relevant sites are where the real value lies.

Here are 6 factors that will enhance link quality:

1. The web site that is linking to you needs to be reputable. This is determined by Google’s Page Rank (a measure of incoming links) and Trust Rank (a measure that is based on human editorial opinion).
2. The relevance of the web page that is linking to you is also important. Therefore, you need to make sure that it is really appropriate for that web site to be linking to you.
3. The higher up your link is located on the page that is linking to you, the more valuable that link is.
4. There should not be a lot of outgoing links on the page that is linking to you.
5. You need to make sure that your link anchor text (the “clickable” phrase on the page that links to your site) is relevant and keyword-rich instead of simply saying something like “click here.”
6. You also need to vary your link anchor text. This will make your links look more natural, which Search Engines also like.

All of this needs to be done gradually and should point to more than just your web site’s home page so as to also increase your credibility.

Whenever you are working with Search Engine optimization, there are 4 main points that you should pay special attention to:

1. You need to decide which key phrases to target by researching which words or phrases your target audience will search for. These keywords must then be incorporated into your title, description and content between 5 and 8 times within the editorial content that consists of between 200 and 400 words.
2. Your site’s structure needs to be set up so that it can be properly indexed. You also should not build your site completely out of graphics, flash, javascript or other such dynamic content.
3. Web sites that are difficult to navigate, slow to load or leave you wondering what it is about will not perform very well. So, make sure that the flow of information is both logical and intuitive.
4. Inbound links are a very important part of organic optimization but herein quality also matters more than quantity. Relevant links are more important than “junk” links are and if you get a lot of “junk” links you will look like you are abusing or spamming them. Some examples of “junk” links are links that come from link farms and free-for-all link pages.

While paid search advertising is growing in popularity, the need for unpaid optimization is growing because paid campaigns can only offer short-term exposure and you will want long-term results. Plus web sites that have unpaid optimization tend to offer users a more quality experience.

There are thousands of article resource directories but all those are probably not worth submitting except a few, However if you have no time to submit to all those quality article resources, here are few article directories those are recommended for submissions. I have noticed some return traffic as well from few .

1. http://www.ideamarketers.com/
2. http://www.buzzle.com/
3. http://www.ezinearticles.com/
4. http://www.isnare.com/
5. http://www.articlecity.com/
6. http://www.articledashboard.com/
7. http://www.e-topic.com/
8. http://www.amazines.com/
9. http://www.excellentguide.com/article/
10. http://www.articlealley.com/
11. http://www.articlesfactory.com/
12. http://www.elib.org/articles/
13. http://searchwarp.com/
14. http://www.articlesender.com/

More Article Directories you can find from Directory Critic. You can also consider our manual article submission that is now provided with screenshots.

There are numerous open directories available online.  The most popular ones include Google, DMOZ and Yahoo.  It was actually Rick Skrenta and Bob Truel who created DMOZ (a.k.a. ODP or the Open Directory Project), which then led to the creation of the numerous other open directories that are in existence today.  These open directories are valuable resources for getting all kinds of links, from back links to incoming links and even more. 

There are some distinguishing characteristics of open directories.  First of all, they are multilingual content that is available to all of the directories users.  Secondly, these are ran by volunteers from the web community.  As such, some of these directories are updated regularly, while others are not. 

These open directories are very popular with webmasters because they know that there are a lot of users who will frequent these directories.  They are also popular because they enable web sites to collect relevant links, which will then help them to get a better Search Engine position.  Plus, these directories also have their own traffic that they are able to send to web sites whose job it is to then convert this traffic into customers.  With all of this in mind, open directories really are 1 of the top strategies used to promote businesses.

If you decide to submit your web site to these open directories, there are some things that you should know:

1.        Check to make sure that there is an editor for the category that you plan to submit your web site to.  If not, you may consider applying as you will then be able to add your web sites a lot faster.

2.       Do not try to put keywords in your title if they are not already in your company name.  If you do, your site will either be edited or rejected outright.

3.       You also should not try to put extra keywords into your description as this will either get you edited or rejected outright.  This description also needs to be kept short and concise.  Your objective here is to state what your web site has to offer.

4.       Patience is definitely required here as it may take weeks or months for your web site to be reviewed.  If it has been quite some time since you have submitted your web site and it is still not listed, then you could send a polite note to the category’s editor in order to find out if there was a problem.

This may sound as though it is a lot of work, but it really is quite easy to do.  Of course, it is going to require some patience and time, but then again, what type of web site marketing is not going to take this.  There most definitely is not any magical trick that you can use to get your web site out and about quickly so that it can be seen.  So, take the time and do the work that is required, then you will be able to reqp some great benefits. 

Whenever you are searching for something specific on a Search Engine, you will receive a number of different pages that may contain possible answers to what you are searching for. These are the answers to what you are searching for, returned to you on your Search Engine Result Page (SERP). There are probably a lot of results on this page. Well, more than likely you will probably find that you will open only those sites that are listed on the first 3 pages while ignoring the rest. If you are a webmaster of 1 of those sites that is being ignored you may be wondering how you can get better positioning for your web site. Well, the answer is simple: through Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

SEO refers to a process through which a web site earns high ranking amongst search results. Through this process, a web site is able to get a good position on the SERP and thus pull in a large amount of unique visitors.

So, who needs SEO? There are 4 different types of web sites. These are:

• Personal sites
• Corporate Sites
• E-commerce sites
• Sites that provide information

Both personal and corporate web sites can actually hold their own without SEO because they are targeted to specific people and the site does not want or need an audience beyond these people. However, this is not true for e-commerce and web sites that simply offer information. These web sites definitely need unique visitors who can only be found through good rankings on SERPs, which are achieved through SEO.

One thing that is important to think about here is the keywords that you choose to use. These are the words or phrases that summarize the main topic of your web site whenever a Search Engine scans the text of your web site. While scanning your web site the Search Engine will pick up the words that you use repeatedly and then match them with the words that are being searched for. If these words match up with one another, then you will get a high ranking.

So, when you select your web site’s keywords, you need to be sure to choose those words that are most likely to be used by those who are searching for a web site like yours. Once you select these words, use them abundantly within your web site’s text but be careful not to place them where they would seem awkward, or you may attract criticism or be penalized. You should strive to have a 3 to 5% keyword density on each of your web site’s pages. They should especially be used within the first 2 paragraphs of your web site, as well as in the concluding line of text. Most importantly, these keywords need to be used in your anchor text, because Search Engines like Google place a lot of importance on the anchor text of inbound links.

Of course, you will have to decide for yourself whether or not SEO is for your site. When making this decision you should remember that more than 80% of people find web sites via Search Engines and 90% of these people do not look beyond the first 30 results. This is especially important for businesses because 75% of people who use Search Engines are looking to purchase a product or a service.

Our clients often ask us, I have budget of $400 for paid directory submissions, Which paid directories do you recommend?

It is true, there are hundreds of directories so, it becomes difficult to find good directories. I’ve sorted out top 12 good quality directories those are recommended for SEO. No doubt there are many others, but when you have limited budget, you can start with these.

1. http://botw.org/
2. http://www.joeant.com/
3. http://www.goguides.org/
4. http://www.wowdirectory.com/
5. http://www.sevenseek.com/
6. http://www.gimpsy.com/
7. http://www.skaffe.com/
8. http://www.site-sift.com/
9. http://www.avivadirectory.com/
10. http://www.alivedirectory.com/
11. http://www.2yi.net/
12. http://directory.v7n.com/

Update: Many of these are no longer worth recommending. This is an old post and directories are rated and included at time of preparing list. So before you submit, check individual directories first. (July 18, 2008)

It is clear that directory submission could contribute immensely to link building. But, how to get your website acceptable to directories? In order to get better acceptance in directory submissions, the first thing to take note is to make your website relevant to the directories. Any thing junk or random is not entertained by any of the popular directories. Further, submitting your webpage in to right categories makes the process quicker and such pages will generally gets listed without any delay. Remember, it is manual editors who accepts or rejects applications for submissions, and for a person who might be viewing thousands of web pages daily, it is far easier to reject a page than accepting it. So, how simple and straight you could make your submissions as possible, the more are the chances of it getting listed in the directories.

Another aspect that goes a long way in enhancing acceptance in directories is the way the titles, description and keywords are organized for a web page. Every directory will have their own rules and regulations, and hence web pages must also be organized around such constraints. Regarding descriptions, most directories require it to be short – in the range of 100 – 250 words that may vary from one directory to another – crisp, and to the point. Descriptions that are huge or of ‘beating around the bush’ type are generally showed the door by the directory editors. The same is the benchmark for keywords as well – it needs to be more organized and focused, and not just another group of irrelevant and relevant ones mixed randomly. In that regard, it will be prudent to make a short list of all prospective keywords first before finalizing the most optimal keyword for submission. That will ease the job for you.

Finally, do not spam your directory listings with words being used uncontrollably and insensibly. Directory editors hate such practices and similar applications are rejected outright without any chance for a second consideration

Social bookmarking has complicated the life of SEO professionals while increasing the relevance of what an Internet search ultimately finds. It may be said that social bookmarking has made SEO more human through sheer lack of control over the content or its form. Websites offering social bookmaking are quite popular as they allow users to store, share, and search for information on folksonomy techniques.

Folksonomy implies that the main users of the content are the authors among themselves. This makes the content more organic and helps to develop a chain of similar content so that social bookmarking becomes relevant when one user or group can easily find other users or groups through a common content base.

Social bookmarking is also challenging because folksonomy, by default, rejects the search engine mindset that SEO experts were hitherto used to. Social bookmarking, through folksonomy, does away with the basic WWW protocols that form the rules for SEO.

Social bookmarking is not just related to web pages but it can also link directly to RSS feeds, music, video, eBooks, shopping items, map locations, and so on. There is practically no restriction on what may turn up through a social bookmarking search.

Though exciting, the concept is not entirely new and can be traced back to April 1996 and the launch of itList.com It took only 3 years for the field to get intensely competitive and only the dot-com fiasco put it in the back rows for a short while. Social bookmarking made a comeback with the emergence of blogging and websites such as del.icio.us, Digg, and reddit.

A social bookmarking system is nothing more than a list of Internet resources that anyone finds useful and shares this list with others. Sharing may be over a closed network, with custom privacy settings, or open to anyone on the Internet. Other users typically conduct a search for matching interests based on category and tags.

Categorization is crucial to social bookmarking due to the diverse nature of content. Most services permit users to search using assigned “tags”. The rank enjoyed by a resource depends on the number of users that have bookmarked it, and not the content of the resource itself.

While originally social bookmarking was only about sharing bookmarks, competition and other factors have forced growth into commenting, rating, import and export, reviews, email links, automatic notification, RSS feeds, web annotations and so forth.

RSS feeds are especially popular with users because it permits them to use “tags” to establish preferences and avoiding manual checking for resource updates. The RSS feed automatically provides information on any updates that take place.

From a search perspective, social bookmarking is good because humans do everything and that implies a natural ability to understand the content. There is no spider or crawler determining content validity or relevance to jumble search results. This means that the tags used are semantically classified, something that cannot be achieved with search engine keywords.

The trouble is that there is no standard, no keywords, no tag structure, and what is more, users often implement their own tag schemas leading to infinite standards.

Users have already started abusing this system by combining it with SEO to increase web visibility. More tags from a web page get it a higher rank and this is easily exploited to falsely get a higher ranking.

Article By: Manish Mathukiya, Who offer SEO Services and Manual website directory submission services.