There’s been a lot of talk recently about whether directories are still worth the time and bother for linking purposes. Google in particular has been devaluing a lot of the free directories, and rightfully so. If a directory isn’t adding value and is indiscriminate in who they are adding to their listings, then why count them? After all, their listings aren’t really indicative of any real value if they are simply an endless list of anybody and everybody who’s ever been to their site and opted in without any parameters or values.

• Its exclusivity – does it let everyone list, or does it cater to a specific niche, such as only entertainment or only religion topics?
• Is it a “free to everyone” site, or does it charge a fee? Generally, sites that charge a fee are recognized as more valuable by search engines. 
• How professionally is it designed? Look for directories with good graphics, professionally written text and fresh links that are frequently updated.

Vertical Measures

If you liked the Link Building Rap Video from Friday, here is another video from our favorite SEO rapper.  Just gotta love it.

Lyrics:

our site design is the first thing people see, 
it should be reflective of you and the industry, 
easy to look at with a nice navigation, 
when you can’t find what you want it causes frustration, 
a clear Call to action to increase the temptation, 
use appealing graphics they create motivation, 
if you have animation, use with moderation, 
cause search engines can’t index the information, 
display the logos of all your associations, 
highlight your contact info that’s an obligation, 
create a clean design you can use some decoration, 
but to try to prevent any client hesitation, 
every page that they click should provide and explanation, 
should be easy to understand like having a conversation, 
when you design the style go ahead and use your imagination, 
but make sure you use correct color combinations, 
do some investigation, look at other organizations, 
but don’t duplicate or you might face a litigation, 
design done, congratulations but it’s time to start construction, 
follow these instructions when you move into production, 
your photoshop functions then slice that design, 
do your layout with divs make sure that it’s aligned, 
please don’t use tables even though they work fine, 
when it come to indexing they give searches a hard time, 
make it easy for the spiders to crawl what you provide, 
remove font type, font color and font size,
no background colors, keep your coding real neat, 
tag your look and feel on a separate style sheet, 
better results with xml and css, now you making progress, 
a lil closer to success, describe your doctype so the browser can relate, 
make sure you do it great or it won’t validate, 
check in all browsers, I do it directly,
gotta make sure that it renders correctly, 
some use IE, some others use Flock, 
some use AOL, I use Firefox, 
title everything including links and images, 
don’t use italics, use emphasis, 
don’t use bold, please use strong, 
if you use bold that’s old and wrong, 
when you use CSS, you page will load quicker, 
client satisfied like they eating on a snicker, 
they stuck on your page like you made it with a sticker, 
and then they convert now that’s the real kicker, 
make you a lil richer, your site a lil slicker, 
design and code right man I hope you get the picture, 
what I’m telling you is true man it should be a scripture, 
if it’s built right you’ll be the pick of the litter, 
everyone will want to follow you like twitter, 
competition will get bitter and you’ll shine like glitter, 
if you trying to grow your company will get bigger, 
design and code right man can you get with it. 

[tags] seo rap video, code design rap, seo rapper [/tags]

Vertical Measures