Once you have your site up and running, one of the important things is to get your site noticed. To do this you need to build back links to your site. One way to build back links is to list your site in many directories.
There are many questions to consider when adding your site to a directory. Should you use a free directory or a paid directory? What should I put as a description? Should I pay for a featured listing? Should I only look for directories with High PR?
I always look for the best deal when trying to promote my sites. I submit to just about every free directory I can find. The exceptions is if the directory is filled with garbage links like porn or drug links. If I decide to pay for a link in a directory, that directory has to look better than a free directory, it has to have some age on it, it has to have a high PR, and it has to have very good traffic. Instead of buying a link on a directory, I would rather spend that money on a related niche blog or website. That is why, in my view, I prefer free directories.
When you fill out a description for your website, I would write as much as you are allowed and something that would make people want to visit your site. Use the key words you are trying to focus on and keep it simple. There is a debate in the world of webmasters as to rather you should write an original description for every directory you submit to. I would say it may be better but I like most webmasters do not always have the time to write a new one each time so I use two or three different ones for all my submissions.
Most directories, either free or paid, will offer a featured link for a price. Is it worth the extra price? One factor is how many featured links will be in each category. If they are selling five or less and it is a good price, I say it is worth it. If it is a high price or they sell too many featured links, you would be better to spend your advertising money elsewhere.
When looking at directories to submit to, one thing that many webmasters look at is the PR or Page Rank of the directory. If given the choice and all other factors are the same, I would recommend the higher PR directories. However, traffic is what you want so a directory with PR0 and a 1000 visits a day will be much better than a PR6 with 10 visits a day. I say look for popular directories that have a lot of listings and has good traffic. Another thing to look at is where they are in the search engines. Type in directories or free directories and see who is on top, those are the ones you want listings in.
One last thing I would like to mention is that many people offer a paid service to submit your site to many directories at once. This could be automatic with software or manually done by a human. Though I am sure that some of these services are legit and can help build you good back links, I think you are better to take the time and do the work yourself. My experience with these services are that they list your site in directories that are either junk or from foreign countries that will do no good for your site. I paid one guy and my site was listed in German directories that contained no English language sites. This will do little for traffic so it was not worth me paying for someone to do the work.
Directory listings are important to building links to your website or blog. It helps build PR, traffic, and helps in your search engine optimization to get you ranked in the search engines. Take the time to do some quality listings and you will reap the rewards.
Here is a couple of sites that can be of help with listing your sites:
Directory Critic : A great site that list many paid and free directories and other free tools.
DirZap: A Free Directory Submission Tool
Posts
