Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
I have a small French site (200 pages, PageRank 4 with Adsense on it) who gets about 1000 unique visitors a day. This is just a hobby, and I spend about 7 hours a week on it, mostly divided on the following tasks:
- 4 hours for adding content (3 pages a weeks)
- 1 hour reading WebmasterWorld forums
- 1 hour looking at the stats
- 1 hour adding my site to directories
For the last 2 months, my plan was to spend time looking for partners to get reciprocal links, since it seemed a good way to improve my Page Rank, to ultimately get more visits. I only spent about 6 hours total on this task, so I didn't even manage to get ONE good reciprocal link. Now with the Jagger update, from what I can read here, it seems that having been lazy on getting reciprocal links might have been good after all.
So what is my new plan?
I have a list of about 300 small french directories (PR 0, 1 and 2) and I can add my site url in about 5 minutes each. From what I wrote, do you think that I should spend let's say 2 hours a week adding my site in these directories (25 every week then)? Can this amount of links added regularly be considered like "buying link" by Google and then loose "rank"?
Thanks for your advices.
Shrike99
I would also keep looking for reciprocal links and even one-way links if your content is good enough.
I'll spend the time adding the site to these directories then. It might be worth it I guess, even if only one out of three is listed in Google and likely to be online in 12 months.
Shrike99
On the other hand, one-way links, in which a related (but not duplicate) site sees value in your content and links for the purpose of providing supplementation to its users, can be very helpful.
I don't think links and directories are an "either-or" sort of thing. Directories can be one way to get yourself noticed, and can lead to good-quality in-links.
For instance, I will periodically go through directory listings in categories related to my own to see if there are new sites out there that my users might find useful. So start by trying to get yourself into DMoz. This directory should then lead to your site being spidered by the major search engines. (Note: This process could easily take weeks.)
Then, rather than hitting up sites for reciprocal links, try finding sites that are related to yours and which have good content. Find their "links" or "resources" or "for further information" page (if they even have one). See if your site might fit on this page. (And be objective!)
Contact the site's owner and respectfully suggest that he might find your site a useful addition to that page. Say why your site would be useful to his users (in terms of his needs, not your ego), and don't hold your breath waiting for an answer. If the answer is "no", be polite, thank him for his time, and wish him well, because if he re-reviews your site some day (maybe his focus changes, or your site grows, etc), you don't want to have left a bad taste in his mouth.
And then you wait.
And then you repeat (contacting entirely different people this time) a few weeks or months later.
And then you wait some more.
Legitimate in-links and traffic take a while to grow. But if you're willing to put the time and effort into producing good content, the visitors will come.
Good luck!
Eliz.
