Well this must be the first post on this Link Building Blog. Today we are gonna talk about a successful link building strategy that is submitting to web directories. The term Web Directory here must be a new term to many. A web directory is nothing but a directory of websites which is well categorized into categories. An example of a popular web directory is the BestSiteArchive Web Directory (This is also owned by me). You can see that there are many categories on the homepage like Software. In each category there are subcategories. Like you can see the Web Browsers category in the Software Category. The Web Browsers category contains many links to sites on the particular topic. Similarly there are thousands of other categories. There are thousands of such directories around on the web. Some are free and some are paid. Free Directories are those who dont charge any money to list your site in it. Paid Directories are those who do charge a fees for getting listed.

Why Web Directories ?

The question which arises now is that, why submit your sites to web directories. The answer is that, when you submit your site to a web directory, the site gets listed in the required category page and hence gives a direct link pointing to your site. And you know why you need links right ? You can’t imagine being a webmaster without links. After all they are what your life is dependent upon. So directories give links which are from relevant category and one way.

Types of Listings in Web Directories

Some web directories offer two types of listings. Regular and Featured. There is small but a major difference between both the options. The featured listing is always on the top of the category page while the regular listings are below it. See the following page - http://www.pegasusdirectory.com/Computers/. The top has three featured links and there are many regular links below it. Regular links may go upto many pages while the featured will remain on top. So if the category is much crowded, your link can go in deep pages and become invisible to search engines, but featured links will always be on top and get spidered at first sight.

Steps to getting listed in a web directory.

Well not the next question you may ask is, how can i get my site listed in a web directory ?. There are some very simple steps. Lets say for example, i run a travel portal and i have to submit my site to the BestSiteArchive Web Directory. For this i follow the following steps -

1. Go to the homepage http://www.bestsitearchive.com
2. Go to the relevant category. In this case i click on Travel and go to the travel category. I can also go to a subcategory like Flights, Hotels or Tours, but i would like to get listed on this page. So i go there.
3. I click on submit link.
4. I get a form where i fill up Title of My Site, URL , Description , My Name and My Email. These are required fields. Apart from this there are many other fields. Some directories offer deep links, like mine does. Deep links means additional links pointing to internal pages of your site.
5. After filling up the form, i click submit. IF the directory is free then the process of submitting is over. If the directory is not free then an additional step is left which is to make the paypal payment of the listing fees.

Free Web Directories

Free web directories are those which do not charge any fees for reviewing the site. A comprehensive list of free web directories is given on the DirectoryCritic site.. The main advantage of free web directories is that, you dont have to pay any fees. Apart from this advantage, there are many disadvantages also. Since it is free , it doesnt have any good source of revenue, hence the owner doesnt well maintain the site. Most of them dont have page rank and are not indexed well. Some of them have a very good page rank and are well indexed like the Pegasus Directory. But the problem with it is that, they get tens of thousands of submissions everyday and it is not possible to get a quick approval and get listed there. I have submitted more than 10 sites there and several other free directories but never managed to get a approval. If i get a approval also by chance, I will be listed on page 20 of a category which is not even indexed in search engines or which doesnt have a page rank. I had once done an experiment. I submitted my site to the directory critic list of free web directories and waited for a month, then checked the approvals. I got a mere 10% approval rate. That means only 10% of the total directories i submitted approved my links which comes to be around 100. Now i also checked all the links one by one. What i saw was that, i was never able to get listed on the page i submitted to, either i was listed on a deep page or on a page which is not even indexed by google. So the final words i give is “Submitted to Free Web Directories is a waste of time”

Paid Web Directories

Now lets come to paid web directories. Paid directories are those who charge a listing fees to get listed. There are tons of paid directories out there and submitting to most of them is a waste of time except a few. Yes there are many quality paid directories around, which have been extensively promoted. Submitting to such quality directories have proven to work wonders over a period of time. Lets take an example of paid web directory which is Alive Web Directory which is a strong PR6 with 1.9 million yahoo listed backlinks. Such directories are extremely well maintained by the owners and are worth submitting a link to. They charge 70$ for a regular and 100$ for a featured listing which is well worth the money. There are many such paid directories around on the internet. A good list of paid web directories is given on the Aviva Directory Blog. You can submit to atleast the top 15 - 20 web directories for best results. Personally, i too have a list of paid web directories where i always submit my websites for best results. The list is given below -

http://www.alivedirectory.com/
http://www.avivadirectory.com/
http://www.uncoverthenet.com/
http://www.2yi.net/
http://www.bigweblinks.com/
http://www.gii.in/
http://www.romow.com/
http://www.sevenseek.com/
http://directory.v7n.com
http://www.apahcinc.org/
http://www.directorydump.com/
http://www.e-topic.com/
http://www.elegantdirectory.com/
http://www.ewebpages.org/
http://www.index-it.net/
http://www.kwikgoblin.com/
http://www.allinfodir.com/
http://www.allydirectory.com/
http://www.biz-king.com/
http://www.cbravo.com/
http://www.cdhnow.com/
http://www.dirsensei.com/
http://www.freewebindex.com/
http://www.mingleon.com/
http://www.premiumdir.com/
http://blogaboutmysite.com/directory
http://www.dirarchive.com/
http://www.dirsurfer.com/
http://www.emillie.net/
http://www.idk.in/
http://www.linksfactory.net/
http://www.linksholder.com/
http://www.nobledirectory.com/
http://www.web1directory.com/
http://www.webahead.net/
http://www.2addhere.info/
http://www.blazemp.com/dir/
http://www.dirjournal.com/
http://www.eonte.com/
http://www.fullofsearch.com/
http://www.highstuff.com/
http://www.linkverve.com/
http://www.trincas.org/

Best of Luck with your link building