Web directory submission is one form of inbound link building strategies and an integral part of your advertising strategy. Manual directory submissions help you build your link popularity — a key factor used by search engines to rank websites. The higher your site’s link popularity is the higher its chances to get a better placement on the search engines for keywords relevant to your site.
There are many search engine friendly directories that would link to your site as part of their directory. Submitting your site to these web directories will help you increase its visibility and attract more traffic from search engines. But before you submit your site to web directories learn how directory submissions work first.
How Web Directory Submissions Work
A web directory or a link directory is a big website that contains links to other web sites. Web directories are different from search engines. A search engine spiders web pages and list them according to searches performed on keywords. But a web directory utilizes human editors to review sites and organized them into categories and sub-categories.
There are two types of web directories: general and specialized. General directories list sites with broad range of topics and organized them into different categories like arts, business and so on. Specialized directory focuses on one topic such as finance and organized subcategories that will fit within a finance topic.
When you submit your web site to a general or specialized directory human editors have to review your site. The criteria for determining whether they will add you site to their directory can vary. But at the minimum your site must contain valuable information. For faster approval, make sure you adhere to their submission’s rules and guidelines.
Web Directory Submission Steps
These are steps that can help you save time and energy in managing your directory submissions:
1. Preparing your listing details. Open your text editor and write down your site URL, title, description, main keywords, your full name and an email address. Some directories accept only your official name as title while others allow descriptive keywords. So write at least three sets of different titles and descriptions to comply with these different rules.
2. Submitting your site. Submit your site to DMOZ and Yahoo as well as other top general web directories. Depending on your subject consider also second tiers and specialized directories. Spend some time to find the most appropriate category for your site. Submit your site by copying and pasting your lisitng details into the directories’ submissions forms.
3. Verifying the results. Compile a list of all directories and the date of your submission. There are directories that send you email once they approve your submission. Visit other directories that haven’t sent you email and search for your site. If they don’t list your site simply accept the fact that there are many reasons why a directory doesn’t list your site.
Once you are familiar with manual web directory submissions automate the process for free web directories using submission software or submission services. With the right method and tool for building inbound links you will see that your site ranking is going to rise proportionally.