Should we focus on Directory Submissions

[agolomb]

When reviewing our competitors links in Open Site Explorer I noticed that many of them have directory links.  We are an online retailer of gourmet food gifts.

So should we focus some of our link building efforts on directory submissions?

[Shipyard_Agency]

It depends on what your company focus is.  If you are a local business with actual store fronts, yes absolutely.  If you are web facing only but provide local phone numbers you can do that as well and simply leave out your address.

The Lesser (non Google, Yahoo & Bing) local listings won't make you jump 20 spots overnight but can help drive valuable traffic and also provide valuable data across the web that can help with your trust and rankings.  (Ratings, Links, Visits etc.)

If you provide a real company and see value in possible traffic through local listings then the answer is Yes - spend some time and do it right.

Fill out every listing in as much detail as possible.

Might not bring loads of traffic but a couple visits per month every month from here on out should help.

[IPINGlobal54]

Further to what Aaron has already said - take a good look at the directory you are going to list in. Is it tidy and clean, or full of adsense? Does it rank ok, and do the section and region pages rank?

Also - see how deep your link will be in their structure. Dmoz used to be one of the best directories to be listed in until it got too big. If you list in the correct area now in Dmoz, most of the time your listing will end up being 5 or more directories deep, in which case the SE's are unlikely to spider it any time soon.

Well selected directory submission = great

Paid "we'll submit your site to a 500,000 directories" = waste of time and cash

[CPU]

Hi Adam

I think you have it right when you say "some" of your link building efforts.

I would look at those that may rank highly for your keyphrases but also if you are a local business I would look to get in local business directories for your area.

I would not focus all your efforts in this area though.

[KeriMorgret]

Just wanted to leave a quick note saying that SEOmoz has upgraded the Link Directory! You can view a post Cyrus wrote with more information about the directory updates and link building via directories at http://www.seomoz.org/blog/seo-link-directory-best-practices