Tips that save time.
(Foreword. What’s in here for you? This post contains a list of more than 30 article directories you can use to get backlinks.)
Essentially, there are two ways of building popularity of your online business’s main vehicle – your website or blog. You can either pay for it or become popular for free (which in reality is far from free, by the way).
If you want to get some “free” popularity you’re going to have to get high rankings on Google. If you want to get high rankings on Google you’re going to have to (first) create some mysterious “quality content” and (second) get backlinks pointing to it.
As you can see by looking at the headline, this post starts a series on where to get backlinks. In this series I want to share some techniques I’m using. And the first part covers one of the most popular elements of everyone’s backlinking profile – article directories.
Note. Creating the mysterious quality content won’t be covered in this series. This is something you already have to be done with, so you can build links pointing back to it. There are many posts around the internet (and on this blog too – my “How to Create Irresistible Blog Posts in Just 6 Steps“ guide, for example) talking about the most important characteristics of good content.
Killing the elephant
Using article directories as part of your SEO strategy still works goddamn it! Why wouldn’t it?
OK, every now and then someone starts panicking, running around and shouting that article marketing doesn’t wok anymore because they saw some worrying drop in rankings after submitting a number of articles. Now why you shouldn’t 100% believe in that:
1. SEO does not work immediately.
In other words, if you do something today you probably won’t see the results tomorrow, or the day after. SEO takes time. Google is smart not to react to what you have done immediately. They would be otherwise very easy to trick.
So if you do something and find your site’s ranking dropping the next day, chances are it’s not directly related to your most recent actions.
2. Publishing articles can’t harm you.
If it could all you’d have to do to get rid of your competitors would be to publish some articles with links pointing back to their sites. That would be just too easy, therefore it’s not possible.
Update. The search engine space has changed a lot in the recent months, so be careful not to go overboard with this whole technique. If used correctly, it can still work.
Article directories worth using
As you probably know, not every article directory is worth getting backlinks from. Some are better than others. They have more authority and bigger audience (yes, article directories are also good for getting direct traffic).
Why is authority important when we’re talking article directories? Every directory lets you include a link in your bio box, that’s nothing new. But not every link is equal in the eyes of Google. The more authority the site linking back to you has the more valuable the link is. That’s why you should aim at using the biggest article directories first.
One of the things that indicate directory’s authority best is its PageRank. That’s because PageRank has been created by Google to do exactly this – rank the authority level of a site. In other words, PageRank is Google’s way of telling you what sites it considers having the biggest authority… what more can you ask for?
Further down this post there is a list of more than 30 quality article directories, but first let me just give a short explanation of what to do with an article directory for those new to the concept.
Using article directories 101
OK, here’s a short roadmap.
1. You write an article. Usually 300-800 words.
Important! It has to be a real valuable article, not just some words put together for the heck of it.
2. Write a bio box.
Usually 50-100 words about you – the author – and a link pointing back to a page on your site/blog (beginner’s note: here’s where to get a domain, hosting, and how to install WordPress in 5 minutes).
3. Submit the whole thing to an article directory.
And that’s pretty much it. After a couple of days your article gets approved and you have a new shiny link.
One more thing. If you intend to use more than one directory make sure NOT to submit the same article. You need to have more articles or more versions of the same article to pull this off.
30+ quality article directories forth to get backlinks from
Note. Some of these websites are not purely “article directories”, but they do allow you to submit articles in one way or the other.
The king is only one
The most important article directory of them all. Google values this site because every article is carefully reviewed by a real person, and some articles take as much as 14 days to get approved (or denied).
Make sure to submit your article here first. Furthermore, don’t submit your article to another directories until ezinearticles approves your submission and the article goes live.
Other article directories (ordered by PageRank)
3. http://www.thefreelibrary.com/
4. http://www.articlesbase.com/
5. http://www.isnare.com/
6. http://www.articlecity.com/
7. http://www.articlealley.com/
8. http://www.articleblast.com/
9. http://www.articlesnatch.com/
10. http://www.sooperarticles.com/
11. http://www.a1articles.com/
15. http://articlesfactory.com/
16. http://www.articlebiz.com/
18. http://www.easyarticles.com/
19. http://www.articlerich.com/
20. http://www.articlecube.com/
24. http://www.positivearticles.com/
26. http://www.businesshighlight.org/
27. http://www.articlebeach.com/
28. http://www.afroarticles.com/
29. http://www.1888articles.com/
30. http://content-articles.com/
31. http://www.abcarticledirectory.com/
33. http://www.freestylejournalism.net/
I’m using many directories from this list in my backlinking strategy and they turn out to be working just fine. You just have to remember not to overdo the whole article marketing thing and not to submit the same article all over the internet. Google will notice it very quickly.
Of course, this post is just an answer to the question “where?” but it doesn’t answer the questions “why?” and “how?” There are many good backlinking strategies out there, and I will share my own once I get a significant amount of data (statistically significant data).
In the next part I’m going to share another place WHERE you can get backlinks, so remember to visit my blog (or just subscribe to my newsletter if you prefer to have the info delivered to you directly).
Finally, don’t hesitate to shoot me a comment if you know more quality article directories that would be a good fit for this list.
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I know EZA is supposed to be the king of article directories, but does a link from them really count much more than a link from other directories? It’s such a pain that you can only submit totally unique content to them. I’ve had articles rejected because I have similar content on my own website – that seems unreasonable to me.
I don’t know exactly how much more the link counts, but ezinearticles has been sitting within Google’s trust zone for a long time. And the main reason is this strict set of rules of approval. Google knows that every article is reviewed by a real person, so only genuine, original content gets published. Sometimes they even reject the article because you’re using a phrase that has been originally used by another author in their article, even when your topic isn’t particularly related… Publishing there can be a pain, I agree.
I think the information you have provided in this article is outstanding and it would surely help most of the business people who will read this. It has been seen that Google puts a huge prominence on back links and ranks the websites which have higher number of quality back links. Thanks for sharing this article.
Your way of describing all in this article is really nice, every one can effortlessly know it, Thanks a lot.
I still believe more on article directories. It only takes some efforts on one’s part