Benefits Of Directory Submissions

Directory submissions have many advantages for the savvy website owner. They offer a one way link back to your site, which has benefits as far as search engine optimization is concerned, and the ones that get alot of traffic, can also bring your site visitors. Niche directory submissions are also advantageous in that they provide a quality, related link to your site and may also bring in highly targeted visitors. Some directory submissions, such as those to the most popular directories like the Yahoo Directory, DMOZ and Business.com, can also help to build the reputation of your site, which is important for gaining links, search engine rankings, as well as visitors.

Here are some essential tips for taking advantage of everything that directory submissions have to offer:

Keep A Log

First, if you're doing the submissions yourself, you need to keep track of every submission you make. A notepad document will work just fine for this. Make sure to note the date of submission, URL of the directory, category selection and any notes. You should also keep track of your paid submissions here.

Finding Directories

There are sites that list SEO friendly directories, it's best to start from one of these lists. Two good ones are Info.vilesilencer.com and Directorycritic.com. Both keep their lists up to date and add new directories and remove defunct directories often. They also keep track of the Google Pagerank of directories, which is quite handy. It's a good idea to start your submissions with the highest Pagerank directories, so start with the PR5 and higher directories and work your way down from there. Don't forget to submit to niche directories. For instance, if your site offers tangible products for sale, you can submit it to the many shopping directories. If your site offers fishing equipment, you can submit it to fishing directories, yes, there are a few. Whatever your site offers, there will usually be some niche directories available for that topic.

Category Selection

Category selection is very important. Submit to the wrong category, and your submission may be deleted. You need to choose a category that is appropriate to your site's content. One shortcut you can use to find a good category is to do a search from the directory's main page. Type in one of your main keywords and see what categories come up. You can also search for a main competitor, if they are listed already, you probably want to be in the same category. Luckily, many directories have the same or similar category structure, so once you have found the right category for your first submission, you will have an idea of what category to use for the other directories. If possible, choose a category with a higher Pagerank or a top level category if submission to them is allowed.

Title

The title of your submission is extremely important. Some directories will only accept your official company or website name as the title, but some will allow you to include keyword phrases. It's a good idea to have several different titles ready for your submissions. One should be just your company or website name, another should be your company name with a keyword phrase. Some directories will allow you to use just keyword phrases as your title, so have several ready.

You'll want to vary the title from directory to directory when using keyword phrases, so as not to make your link building look artificial.

Description

Your description shouldn't be too long or too short. You may want to write a couple descriptions of your site, one short, 15-25 words, and another longer description, from 30 to 50 words. The description requirements vary a bit from directory to directory, but you should be safe if you follow these rules: Don't use all caps, don't capitalize every word, don't just list keywords and don't include extraneous characters like exclamation points, asterisks, question marks, colons and semi colons, at signs or anything other than periods or commas. A description should be a concise description of what your site offers, not sales text. Here is an example format for your description:

Orange Widgets offers quality widgets in all shades of orange including tangerine, mandarin, dark orange, light orange and mustard.

You can expand on this with your long description:

Orange Widgets offers high quality widgets in all shades of orange including tangerine, mandarin, dark orange, light orange and mustard. Also includes widget history, widget tools, articles and resources.

Timing

Google, in particular, doesn't like to see many new links to your site all of a sudden. They may flag this as "artificial link building" and may penalize your site instead of reward it. Due to this, it's best to submit slowly. Take an hour a couple times a month to submit your site, don't submit to hundreds of directories at one time.

Armed with these tips, you should be able to benefit from any directory submissions you make.

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