Importance of Directory Submissions

To increase visibility online is the core of every online business marketing strategy. Driving traffic to your website and getting noticed by search engines takes a lot of time and effort.

‘Links’ play a major role in determining your ranking position on the various search engines. Obtaining inbound links or back links in quantity and quality can influence your search engine rank immensely. One simple way to obtain back links is to submit your link to directories. Online directories exist for the sole purpose of providing links to web users to various sites categorized under relevant topics. “Directory submission” is a website optimization strategy that no website owner should ignore.

Directories catalog links for easy access to users. Much earlier, directories were the primary source for web users to find websites on various topics. Today search engines have taken over but directories have not lost their importance yet. You cannot obviously expect too much traffic from a directory submission. But you can expect an improvement in your search engine placement.

Here is how it works. When submitting to a directory, the major hindrance as well as the major benefit lies in the human editor. Your submission will be viewed by an actual person who determines how relevant and unique your website is. After passing his scrutiny and editing, your website will be accepted in the directory. This automatically establishes the credibility of your website; hence search engines will consider links submitted to directories.

Some directories even feed their databases to other directories and search engines. Search engines base a certain factor on directories in judging a website’s popularity and relevance. Depending on the quality of the directory and the number of back links your website has, search engines will be able to determine your relevance and qualify your website accordingly.

Note how important listing in a directory is. If your website is low on content but rich in images, flash content, etc. search engines may not be able to categorize your website when the search spider visits your site. By submitting to a directory under a particular category, you allow the search engine to categorize your site under a relevant topic.

There are general and specific directories available online. Specific directories target only those websites based on a particular subject or field. No matter what your business is, odds are that directories will be available that cater specifically to it. There are also regional directories available which may be highly useful if your online business targets a local audience.

Making best use of your Directory Submission efforts

All we, webmasters, hardly submit to directories these days aiming for direct traffic, instead we use Promoting Webs, more as a method to obtain inbound links to our site. Search engines are known to give some importance to links obtained from directories and hence we need to pay close attention to certain factors when submitting in order to get the best out of these directory links.

Directories have proven an important source for links. These links should ideally be optimized for the keywords that we want our site ranked for in the search engines. Usually directories allow the submission of just one page (generally home page), so the keywords have to be relevant to that page. Make sure that you have researched your keywords well and chosen those that are minimally competed for but adequately searched. (Keyword research can be done using tools like KeywordDiscovery and WordTracker).

Unlike other methods of link building like reciprocal linking where you can just request the webmaster to include specific keywords in your link, with directory submissions you have to convince the editor to include the anchor text of your choice – you need to make sure of not over-stuffing the anchor text with keywords if you want to stand a chance of approval.

It is also a smart idea to vary your anchor text as search engines have techniques to control anchor text spamming. Too many links with the same anchor text may be unacceptable, so consider a few options which you can use for different directories.

Most directories also require a description of the website. Make sure it does not read like an ad text. Include a few relevant keywords without overdoing it. Avoid exaggerated descriptive words like ‘leaders’, ‘largest’ etc. This will not only make the editor frown, they are also not required. Avoid repetition of words and exclamation marks when punctuating.

Another factor to be considered is the category you submit under. Sometimes choosing the wrong category may be the key to the rejection of your submission. The right category will define your website more appropriately and it will aid the search engine when locating a site like yours.

Make the best of directories by carefully submitting your links in the first place. Once your site has been accepted, it may be extremely difficult to change any of the matter submitted. So make sure that you optimize your directory submissions. Directory submissions are a time-consuming task and you could use our service, Promoting Webs, to save time when submitting your site to the directories.

Why should I submit my site to web directories?

Web directories essentially serve as a catalog of links sorted by relevant topics. In the earlier days, when search engines weren’t as popular, directories served as the main method of finding relevant sites. But nowadays, search engines like Google and Yahoo have taken over and serve as the main medium that connects users with what they’re looking for.

So why should you even consider submitting your site to the directories, especially when not many people use them any more?

There are a few answers to this question:

To get your website indexed

Search engines like Google and Yahoo send out crawlers (spiders) to search the web for new sites that come up everyday. If you have a new site and you want search engines to know of its existence, then there couldn’t be an easier and better way to let a search engine know than having it find your site through links in various directories.

One way links -> Improvement in Search Engine Rankings

Most directories provide one way links, which is beneficial from the SEO aspect of your site. Search engines give importance to the number of inbound links to your site when ranking it for a given position during search and one way links are thought to be valued more than reciprocal links (links exchanged with other sites). Thus, directory links can help give a boost to your SEO efforts.

Targeting specific keywords / phrases

Most directories allow you to provide a link with keywords describing your site. It’s not easy getting links to your site with the keywords you want and directories serve as the easiest medium for getting such links. Getting links with targeted keywords / phrases can have search engines favoring your site over others when ranking for the given terms.

Traffic (not such a benefit with most directories)

There aren’t many directories that could boast of providing your site with traffic that would number in the hundreds per day but there are a few directories that are known to give some traffic (albeit very little) to sites in certain categories.

Most directories are free to submit to

Given the benefits and most directories being free to submit to, it makes business sense to have your site listed in as many SEO friendly directories as possible. After all, you don’t lose anything for doing so.

Submitting to directories can be a time-consuming process though and finding the right directories to submit can take quite a bit of effort. To save yourself the trouble, you may use directory submission services like ours to get your site submitted to all the top quality SEO friendly directories out there.