In my 10+ years of organic growth marketing experience, I’ve found many startups overlook the importance of SEO, backlinks, and website authority in their early days.
While their primary focus on developing their product or service is understandable, this oversight often leads to missed opportunities for acquiring customers through organic and referral channels and gaining visibility from directory submissions.
Some startups launch on platforms like Product Hunt, Hacker News, and Reddit but don’t explore beyond a few of these popular directories. In fact, there are several other high-quality directories you can submit your startup to that can help build a strong backlink profile and increase your startup’s brand authority and visibility.
This is exactly where the concept of entity stacking comes into play.
In this article, we will discuss-
- What entity stacking is and whether or not high-quality directory submissions can help boost your startup’s SEO performance
- How to find high-quality free and paid directories without manually going through each directory
- Things to consider and details to include during directory submissions to maximize online visibility
Ready to boost your startup’s online presence and authority with expert directory submissions? Promote Hippo is here to help. We submit your startup to 150+ top, high domain authority directories, save you time, and improve your SEO performance in 14 days. You can sign up for our service here.
What is Entity Stacking?
Search engines like Google have evolved significantly to provide users with the most relevant and useful search results. One key aspect of this evolution is understanding and recognizing entities.
In Google’s perspective, an entity is a distinct and well-defined object, concept, or idea with a unique identity that can be easily distinguished from others. In SEO, entities often refer to brands, organizations, or individuals.
By recognizing entities, Google can better understand the relationships and connections between various data and information on the internet. This understanding is crucial for Google to deliver accurate and relevant search results to its users.
Entity stacking is a strategic approach to establishing your startup as a recognized online entity. By leveraging high-quality directory submissions, startups can provide more signals to search engines indicating that their website is a valuable, credible and authoritative source.
As your startup’s online presence grows and its entity stack expands, search engines like Google will view your brand as more authoritative, leading to improved search rankings, increased brand authority, organic traffic, and enhanced online visibility.
In addition to improving your website’s SEO performance, entity stacking helps your startup gain visibility and exposure in front of a broader audience. Submitting your startup to niche-specific directories and industry-related platforms allows you to tap into new customer bases and potentially drive more conversion.
Does Directory Submission Help SEO?
Directory submission is a popular off-page SEO technique that involves submitting your startup’s website to online directories with the goal of creating high-quality backlinks and increasing your online presence.
But does directory submission actually help SEO? The answer is yes, but with some caveats.
When done correctly, directory submission can positively impact your startup’s SEO performance, improve your website’s DA and drive high-quality referral traffic.
Here’s how:
- High-quality backlinks: Submitting your startup to reputable directories with high domain authority (DA) can provide valuable backlinks that signal to search engines that your website is a credible and authoritative source. These backlinks can help improve your startup’s search engine rankings, especially when you secure links from directories relevant to your niche or industry.
- Increased online visibility: Directory submissions can help your startup gain more visibility and exposure by placing your website in front of a wider audience. This increased visibility can lead to higher organic traffic, improving your search engine rankings.
- Local SEO benefits: Submitting your startup to local directories can enhance your local SEO efforts by increasing your presence in local search results. This is particularly beneficial for startups targeting a specific geographic region, as it can help attract customers from your target location.
- Brand recognition and authority: Being listed in high-quality directories can contribute to your startup’s brand recognition and authority. As more people become aware of your startup and associate it with other reputable brands listed in the same directories, your startup’s reputation and credibility can grow.
It’s essential to approach directory submission with caution and strategy. Submitting your startup to low-quality, spammy directories or engaging in excessive directory submissions can negatively impact your SEO performance. Google and other search engines may view these practices as manipulative and potentially penalize your website.
To ensure that directory submission benefits your startup’s SEO, focus on the following:
- Submitting your website to high-quality, reputable directories with good domain authority
- Targeting local and industry-specific directories for better relevance and results
- Maintaining consistent and accurate information across all directory listings
- Diversifying your submission sources to avoid appearing spammy or manipulative
By focusing on quality over quantity and targeting relevant directories, you can use directory submissions to boost your online visibility, increase brand authority, and improve search engine rankings.
How to Find High-Quality Directories to Submit Your Startup to?
Submitting your startup to various directories can be time-consuming and labor-intensive, particularly if you want to maximize your SEO benefits by focusing on high-quality, relevant directories.
The challenge lies in identifying these directories, ensuring they have good domain authority and align with your startup’s niche or industry.
This is where Promote Hippo can help. Promote Hippo is a specialized service designed to help startups submit their websites to 150+ top directories, saving you hours of work and hassle.
We leverage our expertise and efficient processes to ensure your startup gets submitted to the right directories, improving your online presence and SEO performance.
When you work with us, you’ll benefit from our comprehensive directory submission service, which includes the following:
- Research and identification of high-quality, relevant directories for your startup
- Consistent and optimized submissions, ensuring accurate information across all directories
- Detailed reports on your submission progress and the resulting improvements in your SEO performance
At Promote Hippo, we use different tools to find high-quality directories efficiently. Here’s a more in-depth look at each of our strategies:
Using SEO tools for in-depth directory analysis
We utilize advanced SEO tools like Ahrefs, Moz, and SEMrush to analyze and evaluate directories based on their domain authority (DA), relevance to your startup’s niche, and other critical factors.
These tools help us assess a directory’s overall quality and value, ensuring that your startup is submitted to platforms with the potential to provide maximum impact on your SEO performance.
By examining organic traffic, backlink profiles, and rankings, we can decide which directories are worth submitting your startup to.
Using advanced Google search queries
We use advanced search queries on search engines to discover relevant directories not easily found through conventional search methods.
By using targeted keywords and search operators, such as “intitle:” or “inurl:”, along with your startup’s niche or industry, we can uncover hidden directories that offer significant SEO benefits.
For example, if we submit a startup in the finance industry, we use a search query like “intitle:submit finance inurl:directory” to find directories specifically for submitting finance startups.
This targeted approach allows us to efficiently identify valuable directories that cater to your startup’s needs.
Tapping into industry-specific directories and resources
We tap into our extensive knowledge of various industries to identify niche-specific directories and platforms relevant to your startup’s target audience.
By submitting your startup to these directories, you gain SEO benefits and increase your visibility within your industry.
We research and curate lists of industry-specific directories, associations, and online communities to ensure that your startup is submitted to platforms that are most relevant and beneficial to your business.
Conducting thorough competitor analysis
We analyze your competitors’ backlink profiles to identify directories where they have submitted their websites.
By understanding your competition’s strategies, we can submit your startup to similar directories, ensuring you don’t miss valuable opportunities.
Using SEO tools, we look at your competitor’s backlinks to uncover which directories have helped them gain traction.
Then, we evaluate these directories based on their relevance to your startup and submit your website to the most valuable ones.
By working with us at Promote Hippo, you’ll save time and effort while benefiting from our expertise in identifying and submitting your startup to the best directories for your needs.
With our help, you can focus on growing your startup while we handle the time-consuming task of directory submissions.
Our well-established processes allow us to find and target high-quality directories efficiently, maximizing the impact of your submissions and improving your online presence.
How to Work With Us?
Working with Promote Hippo is easy. We charge a flat fee of $299 for each startup we submit to different directories.
To get started, all you need to do is provide your website URL and make a payment. Our team will handle the rest, starting the research and submission process within 48 hours. The entire process can take up to 14 days to complete.
Focus on growing your startup while we handle the time-consuming task of directory submissions.
Let’s Get Started 🚀