Submitting your website to web directories is one way of boosting your site’s traffic and gaining popularity to get it recognized among search engines. This is just one of the methods of search engine optimization to get a good ranking in major search engines such as Google and Yahoo. Web directories simply serve as a convenient reference portal or an archive of links that provide external links to relevant websites accordingly to their corresponding categories, which make them an easy place to search for relevant resources.
Most of these web directories are operated manually instead of using automation system to review all the submitted websites. Later on, websites that are approved will be placed under a more specific category. Submitting to directories is similar to typical link building methods as the outcomes are pretty much the same and web directory listing submission is considered much easier.
Generally there are two types of directories, one which offers free listing and some of higher qualities such as LinKernel Web Directory will require an amount of fee in order to get your website listed in them. Both paid and free web directories are great for SEO as it all depends on the quality of the directory itself, however free listing might get a little slower in processing the approval since there will be hundreds of submissions everyday.
Finally, here are some tips and advice to help you find a quality web directory:
- Suitable & Relevant Category: Not all directories has the category you want, some have a wide range while some only offer hand full of them. Be sure your website falls into the correct category or at least one that make sense.
- Page Rank: The link to your website will often be displayed on the category page. If that page has a high page rank, it will definitely help a lot.
- Layout & Design: The layout of the directory should be able to make the links easily visible to visitors and it should not be filled with excessive amount of adverts.
- Quality: Ultimately, take a minute or two to navigate around the directory. If the site is spam-alike, leave it immediately. Websites that are associated with such spam sites will probably make search engines view your website as one of the bad groups too.
