A simple but effective strategy for link building is submitting your website to directories.
Submitting your website to directories should only be used as part of a link building strategy though, as while it is useful it is unlikely to make a big difference just on its own. However, it is well worth pursuing as you can be featured on many directory sites with high page ranks – which makes the back links more valuable.
A web directory catalogs web sites by subject, and is controlled by humans, not software. The web surfer is able to peruse sites that are logically grouped together by categories and menus.
Web Directories are only a fraction of the size of search engines' databases, largely due to the fact the directories are managed by people, and not advanced spiders.
You could also refer to a web directory as a human indexed search engine, organised in a similar fashion to the yellow pages.
A web directory will usually either be a general directory or a niche directory. A general directory includes websites that cover all topics, compared to a niche directory that only accepts websites that are relevant to that particular niche or industry – such as medicine for example.
Search Engines Rank Websites Higher That Have Quality Sites Linking In To Them.
Search engine's place value on back links to websites from quality web directories because these directories are monitored by people, not machines. The high quality and well respected web directories have strict rules on what they accept on their site, and will refuse to link to poor quality sites that ruin their reputation.
Search engine's also like to rank category pages from quality web directories on the first few pages of their search results. This is another reason to have your website submitted to as many high quality directories as possible, especially if your site has not been around for long.
Submitting your website to directories has a double benefit in that is a great way to accumulate quality back links to your site (that search engines love), and on top of that you will also receive targeted traffic from people that are searching through the directory.
But if you are doing this manually you should only bother submitting to the directories that are worthwhile. There are plenty of junk directories out there that the search engines pay no attention to what so ever.
Some Link Building Recommended Resources
http://www.seomoz.org/dp/seo-directory – The SEOmoz Link Directory is a compilation of over 400 quality directories. You can take a FREE 30 day trial to test it out. This is a well respected site that provides a variety of powerful SEO tools to choose from.
http://www.onewaytextlink.com/ This is free free SEO tool designed to help your website jump up the search engine rankings! Unlike most SEO tools that use black hat methods that Google hates, this directory submission software is designed to play by the rules.
Image Copyright (c) from 123RF Stock Photos submitting your website to directories
