Is a listing in this directory really worth $365/year??
-
Recently i noticed one of our competitors is getting a citation out of a directory called Refer Links. I contacted them to find out their pricing, and to be listed in that directory it is $365/year.
I noticed that all the links to the websites are cloaked with php redirects and rel=nofollows' so i doubt it would do much for our page rank, so strictly from a citation standpoint, is this worth it?
Here is our competitors listing:
http://www.referlinks.com/listing/all-canadian-self-storage-inc--mobile-self-storage.html
-
A quote I enjoy...."Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true".
You earned the #1 spot which is great. It sounds like your plan is to wait for someone else to step up and take your spot and then react. I prefer to be proactive but the choice is yours.
-
Thanks Ryan. I have been meaning to make those changes to the onpage stuff. I did fix the title tags as you sugested. And from some other link building we did recently we are now ranking #1 for that local SERP, so i am actually somewhat hesitant to change anything on that page right now.
http://www.google.ca/search?q=storage+mississauga&pws=0&hl=en&num=10
-
I would listen to Ryan's advice.
The sites foundation (coding, on-page SEO) take priority over link building or any other different web marketing strategies. Once the foundation is strong, other strategies become much easier to execute - in your case, if you get the off-page right, you will see much more returns from every link you will be earning.
-
OFF-TOPIC reply: @Storwell
I am offering this "free advice" in an effort to be helpful so I hope you take this the right way.
You are spending a lot of time focusing on your competitors when you have plenty of opportunities for basic on-page SEO within your own site. I know you have been around SEOmoz for a bit and have already read the Beginner's Guide to SEO, but read it again!
Work on 1 chapter per day or whenever you have time and apply the principles directly to your site. I would not worry about competitors until your on-site SEO was solid. Last week I shared an issue with your alt text. You have a lot of fantastic images but their tags are all identical: "self storage mississauga tour". You use that tag a dozen times.
Make one improvement to your site today. Go through the entire site, find every image and update their alt tags to an accurate description which also includes helpful key words. Examples:
Self Storage Security
Storage Garage
Self Storage Area
Think of any terms that users may use to search for your services but also apply to the image.
Climbing to the top is much faster if you can pull yourself up rather then pulling your competitors down.
-
I wouldn't pay that amount even if it was a permanent listing. Certain Nofollows do pass juice and they are not completely useless but this one is not worth the investment considering the price. Even if it was dofollow, just look at the worth of the page not just the root domain (which is not that great either).
-
Everyone is going to place different value in different parts of their marketing strategy, so only you can ultimately decide if its worth it or not.
That being said I would not pursue this service. They have a decent traffic ranking in Canada, but not enough to warrant what they're asking for, in my view. And with the nofollow and php redirects, you're getting no SEO benefit from the service, only whatever traffic they send directly from their site.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Separate images (.jpg) or background images (.css) for list pages?
Hi, We all know that you should optimize your images as much as possible. We're talking about filesize, filename, alt tag, etc.... If we take a look at large websites with large listpages (overview pages / categorypages) I wonder, what the best practice is regarding images. What is your view on listpages / overview pages?
Image & Video Optimization | | AdenaSEO
So, I'm talking about a page with 40 products in a certain category, or 25 holiday homes in a certain region. Is it negative / bad for SEO when using background images (which are loaded through CSS and optimizing the seperate elements is not possible) instead of using 'normal' optimized images (for example .jpg images wich do have optimized filenames, alt tags, etc..). Will it negatively impact listpages / overview pages?
What are your thoughts? Regards,
Tom0 -
Do random listings effect Google Local Rankings?
So my clients business name is "Photojennette Photography" and while researching citations to correct I have found a completely random issue. There's an actress named Jennette McCardy that apparently has a ton of photos on the internet and with that are page titles like "Brand New Photo : Jennette McCardy" and "Look at this Photo Jennette McCardy" My question is, would Google be sending my listing down because of this? It's completely random and has nothing to do with the business. Thanks in advance.
Image & Video Optimization | | jonnyholt0 -
Will it help/hinder our local seo by including our local adress on multiple pages?
We have a large website that targets the whole UK. It has landing pages for every town in the UK. For the towns that this particular business has a bricks and mortar hq, we have set up a local/places page. We then added the corresponding places adress to the appropriate town page on the website. This is just a handful compared to the 3,000,000 towns our site aims to rank for. Question: Would it help or hinder our SEO efforts to add the local addresses to other town pages in close proximity to the original? For instance say we have a places address for croydon in London. Would it hurt to add this address to pages that target towns near croydon, such as Mitcham. All opinions greatly appreciated. Cheers!
Image & Video Optimization | | Silkstream0 -
New site, SEO well considered, no traffic :/ What next?
Hi There! We've built whatphone.com.au with SEO at the top of the list but things are not going as expected. Yes, there's still a lot of work to do, but I was hoping to get some guidance on what to do next to make sure we keep the right focus. This is what we've done to date: Added lots of unique and relevant content, particularly to our blog (and will continue to do so on a weekly basis) Ensured internal linking is strong Optimised each product page around product name (and relevant internal links pointing to it) Ensured the code is clean (ok, we are not a 100% but in a good place) URL structure, metadata, page titles, file names and alt tags following best practice Named the company and registered our domain around one of main keywords we are currently targeting "what phone" What we're working on: Link building Site speed Social signals Rich media (videos, more images) Not a bad effort right? No love from an organic traffic perspective 😕 Ok, the site / domain is no older than 2 months old, it's a very competitive industry, and no inbound links yet, but come on! Questions: Are there any benefits of engaging external providers to help with link building? I'm talking about outsourcing from elancer or similar.. Or is this playing with fire? Have we missed something obvious here? Any help will be greatly appreciated! PS: we currently have some issues with our pricing tables, but will fixed as soon as possible..
Image & Video Optimization | | whatphone0 -
Local SEO Issue: Google Places Listing on Page 8
Hello, I'm having an issue with a client's Google Places listing. It's showing on page 8 for one of the main keyword terms but their main site is on page 1. Having looked into competitors' places listings ranking above, I've ruled out the following; lack of citations inconsistent citations incomplete profile incorrect category listing details not matching places landing page incorrect location and any form of keyword stuffing Other places listings ranking above have fewer citations, incomplete profiles, details inconsistent with their main site, one is no longer trading as a business and one has no website! In the past, our client had had two listings simultaneously but we addressed this waaaay back. Is it possible we could still be getting punished? I'm at a bit of a loss otherwise. Any thoughts would be hugely appreciated. Thankyou!
Image & Video Optimization | | jasarrow0 -
Google Places / Map Results CTR vs Top Organic Result
I have a client who is currently ranking close to the top of the Google Places results for a handful of important local keywords. They have a competitor who is pretty consistantly ranking in number #1 and #2 organic positions, above the Places results. Does anyone know the average click through rates for results similar to these? Do the #1 and #2 organic positions still outperform the lower placed Google Places (with side map) results when the search intent is very local? I just wonder if they are possibly in a better position as-is if people are more likely to use the map or places listings on the SERPs page, rather than click through to another site. Thanks 🙂
Image & Video Optimization | | David_ODonnell2 -
How many local citations directory listings are recommended to obtain a month?
Hi, I am interested to hear what others recommend for the amount of local references & citations to obtain a month. For example, have you found it is better to get listed in SEOMoz's top 50 Local Business Citation Directories over a 30 day period, or is it the same if you registered on all of them in 1-2 days. What about larger numbers, registering on 100 national local citation websites, 50 industry related websites, and 15 city related sites. Have you found any large negative ranking effects on registering on all of them for your clients in say a 10-20 period rather than stretching out the registration process over say 3 months.. Jeff
Image & Video Optimization | | WebBizIdeas0 -
Google local - is 7 pack really gone
According to a searchengineland post, Google has replaced "7 pack" results. But they are still appearing for local queries. Like for query "pizza restaurant new delhi" ( in Google.co.in ), i can still see 7 pack results. Has local and general search algorithms merged ?
Image & Video Optimization | | seoug_20050