SecNam

im dabbling into SEO and wondering what peoples thoughs on directory submission and link tools, and if anyone can recommend any good ones.

mat

I would try and stay away from anything automated. Go search on Google manually for related directories and sites, will pan out a lot better in the long run.

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WigWam

Most automated directory submission / bulk website submitters / pingers are completely worthless.

As Mat mentioned it is much better to do a google search for relevant directories than spam hundreds of irrelevant, over spammed, low quality directories.

If you have a copy of scrapebox finding quality directories is easy peasy, there are so many factors that you can filter such as domain age, pagerank, keywords.....

The value of most directory submissions is almost non existent unless you get lucky, why else would companies be begging to sell their 5000 directory submission package for £20.

You may as well spend your time writing high quality articles and swapping / paying other site owners to put it on their related site with a couple of do-follow anchor links back to your site.

The part of online marketing & inturn seo that many forget is social media. If your site is interesting or has a unique feature people will naturally (and at no cost) post it on facebook, twitter etc. 99% of blog writers worth their salt will be on these sites and if enough people are talking about it they may well blog about it on their site (free links).

By setting up a viral marketing campaign (anything from a funny / interesting article, 'accidently' mispriced product or even an interactive game) it will act as a form of link bait and social media bait.

Good luck with your site

WW.

SecNam

cheers

Bravetart

Directories still work and are good as a foundation for your link building, as long as it's not all that you're doing, though as already stated, ignore anything automated.

I personally don't have the patience to manually submit shed loads of directories. I use a company in Manchester for any freelance projects I do, it's honestly much more cost effective.

ClassicalGuitar

Link diversity is key, low quality directories alone do very little for your search engine ranking.

I have seen movement for local or long tail terms using directory submission to 200+ directories as long as I vary the anchor text and site descriptions.

However, combine them with article marketing, link baiting, blog commenting, rss feed distribution, profile linking, press release submission and they help.

Submission to the Yahoo directory and BOTW are a good platform for any new site.

JessicaJohn

I always like manual work and try to keep away from any software or spamming activities because according to google these kinds of methods are not good for you website and ranking.