Getting listed in prominent blog directories should be a vital component of your inbound marketing strategy. Why? Quite simply, traffic and backlinks. When optimizing a blog for SEO purposes, there are a variety of methods that can be used to improve your search engine rankings, but traffic stats and linkage from other sites are among the most powerful tools that can be used to position your site near the top of search engine results.
For example, if someone is searching for cheap car insurance, and your firm offers either cheap car insurance or serves as an affiliate portal with auto insurance companies, you already know that from a search engine perspective, the field is crowded and competition is tough. You need to be smart, and use every tool possible to get the pages views and ad impressions that make being online worthwhile.
Blog directories provide a vital service and competitive edge for a business field like cheap car insurance. Everyone wants to lower their car insurance rates. So how do you get started?
A web search, naturally.
There are several blog directories that are “must have” on any webmaster’s list and a quick search can give you the best directories to target for the product or service that you’re offering. For example, Best of the Web has been around since 1994, and is generally considered the gold standard for blog directories. If your cheap car insurance website or blog is accepted at BOTW, you will certainly see an immediate spike in traffic. Why?
You’ll drive traffic from the blog directory, and search engines place a lot of value on those types of reputable backlinks from an SEO perspective. In essence, with good blog directory listings, you’re killing two birds with one stone – the directory itself, and search engines that value blog directories for preferential listings. The more inbound links that your cheap car insurance site can get from blog directories, the more traffic you’ll get.
A word of caution: search engine ranking criteria and algorithms are constantly changing. Not only is good placement in a blog directory important, but simply to get listed, you need to have dynamic, engaging content. Strategies that work today for cheap car insurance blog SEO purposes might not work next week. As an example, Google recently changed their ranking algorithms, and many sites took a significant traffic hit.
At the end of the day, any web or blogmaster who wants their site rated highly needs to use all of the tools at their disposal. Content that is clean, with no spelling or grammatical errors, topical, and engaging will always rise to the top. How easy is that to do for a competitive topic like cheap car insurance? It’s not. So, starting with a blog directory strategy is a great way to raise your profile and search engine rankings.
