Search Engine Optimization

If you’re optimizing your blog for search engines, you should know that the best way to do it is to build more backlinks to your blog. I shared some practical tips on building more backlinks to your blog in my previous posts. You might want to check them out:

• Optimize Your Blog For Search Engines With Dofollow Social Media
• Get More Backlinks With Dofollow Blogs
• Using Public Label Rights Articles To Get More Backlinks
• More Backlinks With Dofollow Social Bookmarking Sites

Today, I wish to share you another useful blogging tip that will help you build more backlinks to your blog. That is to submit your blog to online directories. Unfortunately, most online directories ask for a listing fee. If you’re running out of budget, don’t worry because there are tons of quality directories where you can get your blog listed for FREE!

Directory Critic - Largest List Of Free Directories

Luckily, while I was doing the usual blog hopping, I came across Directory Critic. As its name suggests, this is where online directories are reviewed in terms of the quality of their services, the costs, the friendliness of their sites etc. In fact, you can contribute your own reviews of online directories you came across with, suggest a new directory to be included in their database, rate directories and or report directories that violated the terms of service of Directory Critic.

More importantly, Directory Critic has the largest list of free directories. It currently has 1485 general free directories in its database and a total of 3075 free directories including niche lists. This useful list will help you cut time googling for free directories and use it to more productive activities.

The list of Online Directories, as shown in the above image, can be sorted out easily according to their (directories) name, page rank, point and date submitted. This will enable you to filter out directories you don’t want to submit your blog to.

Now the only thing you need to do is be patient in submitting your blog.

If you know of other lists, do share them in the comment. Thank you for your time.

If you can build more backlinks to your blog by leaving comments on Dofollow Blogs, you can also get more backlinks by submitting your posts to dofollow social bookmarking sites. Here are some reasons why you should try using dofollow social bookmarking sites.

• Most social bookmarking sites have high Google page rank. Think of the Google juice you’re getting.
• Social bookmarking sites are frequently crawled by search engines. If your post got bookmarked with a dofollow social bookmarking site, the index rate of that page will be faster.
• Drive more traffic to your blog. Social bookmarking sites have thousands of users. If your post is good enough to catch their users’ attention and interest, you’ll certainly get a spike in your traffic. Just make sure you have enough bandwidth to accommodate the huge traffic though.
• Social bookmarking sites are free. That’s free promotion and free advertisement.
• A large number of popular social bookmarking sites are actually “Dofollow”.

Bookmarking Tips

Before we go to the list of dofollow social bookmarking sites, here are some useful tips that will help you maximize the SEO benefits of submitting your posts.

1. Install social bookmark buttons or links at the end of you posts. : It would be better and more credible if your readers submit your post to social bookmarking sites instead of you doing it. Providing them with bookmarking buttons at the end of your posts makes it more convenient for them to bookmark your post.
2. Use catchy and keyword rich titles. : You need to use a cathy title to attract more visitors to your blog. This doesn’t mean you have to resort to making attractive titles for the sole purpose of generating more traffic. You have to remember that other than pleasing humans, you also need to please the search engines. In most cases, the title you’ve used for a post you submitted becomes the anchor text. Hence, using keyword rich titles improves your search engine ranking while at the same time increases your backlinks.
3. Make sure to include a summary of your post. : Most social bookmarking sites require you to provide a summary of the post your are bookmarking. When you do this, avoid doing the mistake of copying the first few sentences of your post and pasting it in the summary. As much as possible, make a new summary. Use relevant keywords or keyphrases in your summary.
4. Make sure to use tags when available. : When submitting your post to social bookmarking sites, include relevant tags. This will help improve the search engine visibility of the post you’ve submitted. Ultimately, this would mean more traffic for your blog.

Dofollow Social Bookmarking Sites

Now that you’re ready, here are some useful list of dofollow social bookmarking sites. Submitting your post to social bookmarking sites is not an easy job but when your posts are interesting and useful enough, naturally, your readers should be doing the work for you.

• 9 Dofollow Social Bookmarking Sites - Compiled by SEJ
• 22 Dofollow Social Bookmarking Sites - Compiled by Caroline Middlebrook
• 24 Dofollow Social Bookmarking Sites - Compiled by Reviewer of Sites
• Ultimate Dofollow Lists - Compiled by Pixelrage

That’s it for today. You should be able to get more backlinks to your blog by submitting your best posts to the lists of dofollow social bookmarking sites.

You need to be careful when submitting your own posts. Some bookmarking sites are keen on spammers. If you get caught for submitting too many of your posts to the same bookmarking site in a day, your blog can get banned. It is always safe to submit one post a day!

Thank you for your time and as always, your comments are most welcome.

As promised, here’s another blogging tip that will help you increase the number of backlinks to your blog. You may read building backlinks to your blog in case you missed the first tip to be able to understand the importance of building more backlinks and what it can do for you. Continue reading if you’re ready for another blogging tip that will help you increase the number of backlinks to your blog.

Dofollow And Nofollow Blogs

The Blogosphere has two kinds of blogs; Dofollow and Nofollow blogs.

Nofollow Blogs are blogs that implement a nofollow attribute to their external links (rel=”nofollow”). This is usually implemented on the links in their comments, which prevent search engines from crawling the website they are linking to. As a result, you don’t get any link juice from leaving your comments on them.

Nofollow attribute in comment is used by most blogging platform (i.e. Wordpress and Blogger) by default. This is done in an attempt to curb the number of spammers.

Dofollow Blogs on the other hand are blogs that don’t implement the nofollow attribute in their external links, which means to say that leaving your comments and reactions on their posts will reward you with a backlink.

How To Know Whether A Link Is Dofollow?

If you would like to get more backlinks to your blog while you leave your comments, you should comment on dofollow blogs. But how do you know whether links in the comment of a blog are made dofollow?

The first thing you can do is to view the page source of a particular page. Look at how links in the comments are coded. A nofollow link has the “nofollow” attribute in it and it looks like any of these:

<a rel=”nofollow” href=”External Link”>Anchor Text</a> or
<a rel=”external nofollow” href=”External Link”>Anchor Text</a>

The other method is to use Mozilla Firefox as your internet explorer and download and install the Search Status Plugin. The Search Status Plugin will enable you to quickly check on the Alexa Traffic Rank and Google Page Rank of every webpage you view.

Using your mouse, right click on the “Q” icon found just before the Google page rank and choose “Highlight Nofollow Link”. All Nofollow links of every webpage you view will be highlighted in pink. For a more detailed information, you can read my previous post on Search Status Plugin.

The Easier Way - Dofollow Blog Lists And Dofollow Search Engines

Of course there’s always an easier way. That’s to use existing compiled lists of dofollow blogs or use custom made search engines.

1. Dofollow Blog Directory
2. Bumpzee - Dofollow Blogs
3. D-List Blogs

You can also use blog search engines that will find dofollow blogs for you. All you need to do is use a search term (keywords or keyphrases) and it will return you with a list of dofollow blogs.

1. Dofollow Driver
2. Dofollow Blog Search
3. Digerati Blog Search

Keep in mind that SPAMMING is not good for your blog. Don’t waste your time spamming because there’s a good chance that your comment will never see the light. Instead, comment on relevant blogs and add something of value to the post/discussion.

What are you waiting for? Go ahead and try the lists above and start building more backlinks to your blog. Like always, your comments are most welcome. Thank you for your time.