Very often, people who professionally optimize websites for search engines come to a point where they focus exclusively on the big picture of site rankings and the associated link building.  While link builders can’t usually be charged with myopic vision and inflexibility in their methods, sweating the little details isn’t generally on the collective agenda either, especially when trying to promote multiple sites simultaneously.

Many times a new focused strategy or technique may not seem worthwhile because of the huge amount of top-level searching and otherwise time-consuming processes needed to begin the undertaking.  Faced with the option of using tried-and-true tactics for good rankings with the major search players or experimenting with new techniques like social media, niche marketing, local search & directories, and video optimization, many will choose to do what they’ve always done in the past simply because they know they can meet their deadlines that way.

In the long run, though, most seasoned SEOs would agree that experimentation with less-often used sites like local and niche search engines pays off in many valuable ways.  Not only is there simply more “link space” to be had by promoting a site across local search engines and other sites specifically devoted to the same vertical markets, but the act of using them for research brings up results that would otherwise remain hidden if the major search engines and common site tools are the only methods used.

Pushpins on the Map

Regardless of the global nature of the Internet, geography still plays a huge role in determining which sites get listed where.  For example, a site that has a local store and doesn’t sell their products online has no choice but to focus their web marketing on local search engines and directories, since almost all potential paying customers have to be in their city.  Using local directories for an example like that makes sense, but it makes equally good sense to use local and niche search engines and directories for a website that does every bit of their business online; it simply gives them another avenue by which to be discovered, along with precious links from generally decent and respected sites.  In addition, there are a few local business sites that don’t seem to care if the business is actually local, which means that there are some free backlinks to be had from them.

Social Connections

            By now it’s no secret that social media plays a large and steadily increasing role in many aspects of web marketing.  From the search engine side of things, they’re valuable in all the obvious ways:  Social networking platforms are often popular, regularly updated, and respected sites with an enormous amount of unique and (somewhat) organized content.  Therefore, all the normal bookmarking, voting, and commenting techniques apply well to this arena.  Beyond that, though, there’s an added benefit to having one’s content on a social media site:  A huge potential audience.  Of course, depending on what exactly is being promoted, there may not be a huge user response to whatever you’ve contributed on social sites, but that really doesn’t matter so much.  It’s great when other users are really excited about something that they’ve been informed about through the network and begin to interact, because it draws search engine attention.  If it’s at all possible, it’s wise to submit humorous or valuable content that only subtly resembles marketing material.

            By exploring the furthest reaches of the web and even some places that seem less than worthwhile, one’s SEO efforts will be improved tangibly.  Furthermore, the link builder who takes the time to do this research will certainly be exposed to different opportunities that would remain hidden if working exclusively within the confines of their historical precedent.  Make sure to stop back at this blog tomorrow for part 2 of this post, where we will take a look at some niche search engines and examine their usefulness for optimization and research.

Vertical Measures

Welcome to “Do Follow” Tuesdays. To read what this is all about, you can check our announcement post. 

In summary, every Tuesday we pick a vertical market based on the number of votes a market receives at our Vertical Market Poll. This week it is the Business Services market. We invite all of you out there to post in the comments a specific link building recommendation for the Business Services market (a good directory, authority website, blog, link search, etc.). If it adds value, we will approve it, give you the credit and a “do follow” link to your site. However, we will just delete stupid, irrelevant, spammy comments – only truly useful information will be allowed. 

Business services can cover a lot of ground.  Places like ad agencies, employment agencies, payroll services, collection agencies and cleaning services all would fall into this category.  This week’s suggestion from our staff is finding good online directories for your business.   Just like Debra Mastaler, we too feel directories can still be a good place for link building.  Google has hammered many of the "free directories" and rightly so, but there are still many very worthwhile directories out there.  Google and the others still like quality, niche directories and those with editors, traffic and backlinks.  Don’t get too hung up on the PR of the directory and its inner pages, you might be surprised at how much link juice you can still achieve from some of these links.

And it’s not all about links, good vertical sites also provide opportunity for marketers, who can generate highly qualified leads and click-through due to the focused demographics of many B2B vertical sites.

Here are some examples for the Business Services Market.  It took us about 30 minutes find these.  Try doing searches for "small business directory" or "human resource directory" to find directories in your niche.

http://www.littleengine.com - LittleEngine is a social directory for Small Businesses who want to publicize, network and communicate with their local communities.
http://www.kellysearch.com – A business to business (B2B) supplier site, with more than 22,000 Google backlings!
http://www.hrdirectory.org – Not the strongest directory, but if you are in the HR business, you should be listed here.
http://www.asmallbusinessdirectory.com – Check out their B2B, office decor and professional services sections.
http://www.bizseek.org – This directory has more of an international flair, not the strongest, but a good niche directory.

Lastly, here is a great list of major B2B search engines and directories from Search Engine Land.

OK, now lets hear from the rest of you. Place your advice for link building for the Business Services market in the comments below. Those that are accepted will get a nice "do follow" link from us.

Make sure you sign up for our email or RSS feed so that you are alerted every time a new niche market is covered. Even if we are not focusing on your niche, you just might see a pretty creative idea that will trigger an thought for your market. 

Be sure to vote for your market today! VOTE HERE  

[tags] business services, ad agencies, employment agencies, payroll services, collection agencies, cleaning services, hr services, vertical markets, niche markets, link building [/tags]

Vertical Measures

Just how successful your articles are depends on a number of factors. The articles have to be interesting, well written and contain enough helpful information to have real value to readers, but they also have to be marketed properly. All of the articles in the world won’t help you if you post them in places where they won’t be found by the right audience. A fascinating, informative article about proper surfboard maintenance isn’t going to help you if it’s lost in a general article directory or posted on a website where most readers are avid mid-west gardeners.

1) Find the right editorial calendars. Look for the editorial calendars of online publications. Most online publications provide an editorial calendar that outlines what the main topics will be several months in advance. Reviewing these can not only give you an idea of when to submit articles you already have, but give you some great ideas for future articles. For instance, www.eweekmedia.com, an IT publication, is focusing on Mobile and Wireless in early May of 2008. In April 2008, there’s a feature titled “Security Focus: Email Security Challenge.” 

Whatever your business’s niche, check the magazines and review editorial calendars and make sure you match your articles to their focus – and be sure to pay attention to their submission deadlines! Editors love to run articles that dovetail with a particular focus.

2) Find niche publications. After you’ve checked out the editorial calendars of the magazines you’re already familiar with, look for publications you aren’t familiar with. For example, if you have an ecommerce website, search for “ecommerce magazines” and you might just find this: www.world-newspapers.com/e-commerce.html.

When you search for Surfing magazines, you can find magazines that include online magazines focusing on female surfers, North Carolina surfers, New England surfing, Australian surfing, competitive surfing, long board surfing…well, you get the idea! Even a niche like surfing can be narrowed even further, so be sure you look for any potential niche magazines that you can really tailor your articles toward that will love you for sending them some high quality content.

3) Find niche article directories. There are good niche article directories out there that either supply niche businesses with quality content or can point you in the direction of respected online publications that are looking for content. Lets say your site is about human resources, here is an example of article dedicated to HR http://www.businessknowhow.com/bkhmanage.htm.

You can do basic searches for “human resource article directory” or whatever your business niche is, and you’ll turn up various directories where you can get your articles published.  Do some homework, however, to make sure that you utilize the best directories for your own articles. A few things to look for in an online article directory are:

• Read several articles in their supply of articles to check the quality. The articles should be well-written, with plenty of information and excellent grammar. If the quality isn’t consistent, then the directory doesn’t set high standards.
• Does the site indicate how many articles are actually downloaded each month? You want to compare figures from directory to directory to see how much of the traffic to the site is actually downloading articles.
• How recently has the site been updated? If there hasn’t been new content added in more than a month, then the directory may not get regular visits from publications. It also means there aren’t very many authors. The more authors, the more frequently articles are added. Publications are looking for fresh content – and fresh content means content that’s new and different every time that a visitor logs onto a directory. Look for sites that are changing every day.
• And of course you might check their pagerank, backlinks, traffic stats, etc. to judge the quality of the link juice or traffic they might send your way.

If you use these three methods of getting your articles out there, you’ll quickly see a difference in your website traffic and inbound links. Any other suggestions from our article experts out there?

[tags] article marketing, article directories, niche markets, website traffic, inbound links [/tags]

Vertical Measures