How to rank if you are an aggregator or a directory of resource?

[Maayboli]

Most of the SEO suggestions (great quality content, long form content, engagement rate/time on the page, authority inbound links ) apply to content oriented site.

But what should you do if you are an aggregator or a resource directory?  You aim is to send the user faster to other site they are looking for or provide ranking about the resources. In fact at a very basic level you are competing for search engine traffic because they are doing same things. You may have done a hand crafted, human created resource that is better than what algorithms are showing.  And your site  likely to have lot more outgoing links than content. You know you are better (or getting better) since repeat visitors keep coming back.

So in these days of Search engines, what a resource directory or aggregator site do to rank? Because even directories need first time visitors till they start coming back again.

[BlueCorona]

WE LOVE THIS QUESTION. Have you used your site for other content purposes like blogging? If you're a directory, you could reach out to reputable companies (or whatever you're a directory for)  and ask them to either guest post on your blog and then share it on social media, or you could use link building tactics to get people to link to your site. Make sure you add the value to your directory or aggregator, and make it clear what the purpose of your site is.

One thing you could take advantage of is social media. Since you're an aggregator, you probably have a niche or target, and you can reach that audience to funnel traffic to your website through social media. Other than that, we would just recommend making sure your backend is as tight as possible, and make sure it's optimized for mobile, since mobile is a huge factor. Another thing to look into would be to optimize for voice search.

Hope this helps, and looking forward to seeing other responses!