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Yes, thanks Rodger.

Like anything, cover lots of areas in moderation, be consistent with it and be patient.

Hi Roger,

Yep - having images (and reviews etc) in your SERPs results has indeed been proven to improve your CTR (depending on your image that is ).

This works really well for eCommerce sites. I've been working through rich snippets for magento, which is what my Uniquely Crackers site is developed upon.

Once I've implemented then, I hope to see the odd product image displaying on the first page along side my listings. So working hard to get my product pages listed in the SERPs too for maximum benefit.

I think your right. One of my sites sells just one type of product, so the challenge was finding an available domain name that suited my product and one that I could use to create a brand in the niche, which was also catchy and memorable.

The site supplies Christmas crackers and so the domain name I went with is 'Uniquely Crackers' - which is fairly simple, short and catchy - I think.

Also meant I could create content and a design which was a little less formal and more towards the fun element of the product.

So for me, you must consider the nature of your product and how its perceived in order to create a good, memorable name.

Your correct in that - I wouldn't look to re-spin. I'd first add the article to the site, then re-write and post unique versions on a few of the top sites.

Moving away from article directories altogether, I've found that guest posting has more traction and more often than not the content you create can be picked up and added to lots of different blogs from the one unique blog you originally guest posted for - that is if you wrote the article for a decent high traffic blog in the first place.

I'd agree in the fact it works as part of an overall marketing / link building plan.

Article marketing, based on unique content can indeed be valuable and I've seen decent improvements when I've coupled it with other elements of 'SEO'.

On a site of my own, selling luxury Christmas crackers, I used the technique on site launch, doubled up with a yahoo dir and best of the web dir sign up (plus a couple others) and chartered the ranks over a period of three months.

The site for that keyword moved from outside the top 100 results to its current position on Google UK of 6th (at last check and in case your checking the site is uniquely crackers). Its fluctuating around and moving up slowly now, but great progress and proves that it does work (in this particular niche).

I think the question should be are links less important than they were?

Back in the day Google treated all links as being equal, but this hasn't been the case for some time due to all the spamming and manipulation of link profiles. So that led to the next question - are links from social sources the answer and are they going to replace 'normal' links?

I'd argue that social signals can tell you a lot about trust, timeliness and perhaps authority, but that they are limited in terms of their relevancy - so would that benefit your rankings for a particular keyword? I doubt it.

So where does that leave you?

I'd say don't bother spending all of your time getting links from Google +. Spend time generating links from lots of sources, natural ones, social ones, contextual ones, directory ones, do follow ones, no follow ones, forum ones etc etc etc etc etc.

Hi Jerry,

The simple answer - natural ones.

The focus should be on offering something of value, something that will grab some attention and be useful enough for someone else to want to link to.

A natural link profile WOULD NOT just include one way, do follow links.

A natural link profile WOULD include do follow links, no follow links, paid directory submission, free directory submission, blog comments, contextual links form good content, links derived from guest posting, links derived from natural social activities, links derived from lots of other methods.

The point here is a natural profile is one that is not manipulated, its one that happens naturally by doing the right things that benefit your site and most importantly your audience.

Hi,

Using directories as part of an overall plan to promote your site is fine, and its kind of a natural way to go about it - only as part of an overall plan.

Generating links solely from directories in the long run, wont benefit you that much. There are relatively few good quality, human edited directories that add any value to a website, and even less of them are free (when compared to the overall volume of directories available).

You (IMO) would be best switching your efforts to improving your site in terms of indicating to Google what you wish to rank for (improving on-page elements) and showing your visitors you know your niche by delivering great and useful content. Back this up with some other methods (guest posting etc) and your moving in the right direction. Of course, directory submission can be a part of the overall strategy, as getting listed in the best human edited directories is a natural thing to do.

No follow - personally I wouldn't worry about having no follow as part of the strategy, in fact I'd encourage it. Data suggests that sites with a natural link profile that included both do and no follow eventually rank better. If every link pointing to your site was do follow then that tells me you have manipulated your link profile and so it also tells Google, who look to penalise 'unnatural' elements of link building.

Hmmm....think about using this carefully. What are you actually getting for free? Links that could, and mostly likely will damage your overall link building efforts and your sites inclusion in Google.

I consider any tool that offers 'free links' as one that is essentially offering you the chance to game Google, which Google has measures in place to spot. So when they spot them, they spot you, and your site.

If you value your site, and its your main income then simply don't take the risk.

There is never an easy route to getting to the top both in terms of running a profitable website and getting to the top of search engines.