Does registering with the paid Yahoo directory have any effect on your google rankings?

[ebowdublin]

I am trying to get quality back-links and I know Yahoo is one adn as it is a directory is still ok post penguin but can anyone tell me whether it is worth it or does Google ignore the Yahoo links?

Thanks

[Marcus_Miller]

Well, it's not cheap, and it's going to build you a ranking off one directory link. It won't hurt, may even help a bit, but without some kind of perspective of where you are and where you want to be, it's hard to recommend as the best bang for your buck.

Any more info on your current situation? What else are you doing to help get more traffic? What is the business and competition like?

[ebowdublin]

Thanks Marcus,

We're selling men's fashion and our market is google.co.uk we are receiving good search traffic considering we're only open 1 month, about 100 uniques a day. We have a good blog, good social media and a small portion of advertising on fashion blogs along with a strong product selection. I am just working on ways to tackle 3 of our high volume search phrases (mens jeans for example) who have competitors like ASOS.com and the big boys like that. We are considering putting more budget into communicating with bloggers also....

[Marcus_Miller]

If you have a budget, it won't hurt, but those look like big terms so working with bloggers, guest blogging, tons of interesting jean related content is going to be more scaleable. I wonder if you could come up with some kind of really groovy infographic driven posts to try and pick up some sharing of that content, maybe a history of mens jeans or some such...

Also, there is no shame at picking around the edges and working into those big terms over time + having a strong incentive for people to connect socially so you can push offers at them.

Best of luck!

[MattJanaway]

Do you really want to be competing with ASOS for that kind of term? I mean, sure, in the long run why not?! But for now, being such a new site, I would recommend picking off some of the smaller search terms and feeding from ASOS's crumbs.

[Marcus_Miller]

I totally agree with Matt here, work around the edges and think of those terms as the eventual target but you want to be ranking for some modified versions of those before you pour all your effort into those big hitters.

I would sort of work down a funnel (keywords are made up) with each success meaning I am closer to the big hitters:

diesel blue mens jeans uk
diesel blue mens jeans 
blue mens jeans
mens jeans

It's also worth considering that those big terms maybe quite volatile and indicate someone in the browsing stage of their purchase rather than primed ready to buy.

[webestate]

It can't hurt to pay for the Yahoo directly link however I have not noticed one competitor dominating another because of that one link.  I have seen many sites without that link dominate others with it.

You are on the right track with blogging and social media.

I would think in your industry photos and video go a long way.  I like Marcus's suggestion below (doing a history of mens jeans).  Since consumers are visual it's important to integrate an image or video where ever you can.  For material products some people may search on google via the images tab so they can see photos.

[ebowdublin]

Yeh I think those are all great selections, I guess we were looking at the top terms and scaling down from them instead of up, going after ASOS is more an aspirational goal but definitely we are also concentrating on the funnel and item specific keywords (diesel zaghor 6a etc) as these are doing well for us, it's such a competitive space though we're looking at all angles!

I like the infographic idea - anyone know anyone good at producing them?

Thanks all! You've been a great help

[Marcus_Miller]

Hey, I know a great designer, loads of experience but just starting out on his own so will do this kind of thing for the right money. Fire me a private message and ill hook you up with his details.

[webestate]

You might also check out elance.com.  I have hired web designers from here before and had pretty good experiences