Cornwall SEO

Content Marketing Blog

Beaten to a pulp Social Voting beats Directories for Link Building

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I have always hated directory marketing. Schlepping around soulless, low PR directories. Hoping that the links would give your little green bar a tug. Have you ever used a directory to find something, I haven’t, I’m more likely to open my window and look for smoke signals telling me to head them off at the pass.

Directories are Dead. Not really but it seems to be in vogue to announce the demise of something or other. They’re not dead, it’s just something has come along that is more effective, more vibrant and more fun.

I like Social Media sites like Digg, Reddit, Netscape etc. It allows me to use my skill to get my entries noticed. Basically they are huge directory sites. Their category pages get crawled by Google, the archives are around to continue the traffic. I still get traffic from entries I submitted ages ago just from the keyword.

Social Media Experiment
I made quite a few Digg submissions which squeezed the keywords, Digg, Unbuntu, Apple etc. into the description. It was painful to read but I got traffic from it. “Kate Moss ate here apple and put an Unbuntu on her head”. See, it can be done. C’mon, you don’t really expect me to take Digg seriously do you. It’s like a bucketful of slugs over there.

Joking aside, along with the main Social Voting sites there are niche sites concentrating on specific areas. With the rise of Pligg you can have your own Digg clone going in 15 mins. Andy Hagens wrote recently about the juiciest sites for traffic.
Social Media Sites that actually send traffic

I modified his list adding PR and Alexa rankings which is always fun to have.

Some people complain that these sites do not send the traffic, well maybe your entries need a bit more work. Do you work on your headlines for the same amount of time as you work on your content. The headline is crucial. Don’t be bothered by people thinking you are too cheesey, or that your headline is lame. The only thing that matters with your headline is that it works.

Here is a bigger list of mostly untested Digg clones. You should be able to submit relevant material to all these sites.

www.1zone.net/
100cute.com
http://www.100cute.com/list-of-all-the-digg-style-applications.html
More Digg clone sites

Updates:
Robb has an opinion of directories
The massive SMO vs directory marketing fight
A directory owner defends directory marketing
A business directory from seoco.uk