Internet Marketing: The Power of Free Directories
It is an adage now that the more in-bound links you have into your site then the more of your site will be indexed by the serach engines and the higher your pages will be in their ranking. A major part of SEO (search engine optimization) is the gaining of IBLs (in-bound links into your site). What you're after here is something called 'link popularity'. Essentially the more links that point to your site (especially from sites with page rank of 3 or more) the better your ranking in the search engines' results will be. You need in-bound links as this is how search engines find out about your sites. The major search engines also view the number and quality of incoming links as a 'vote of confidence' in your site and it's content.
If you're just starting out then it is probably better for you to submit your site to those free directories that will easliy allow you to modify your website's entry. After all, your business model and your website's design are likely to change as you develop your site and the items you are promoting.
Which Directories to Submit to:
The best are Search Engine Friendly directories (those that actually have your site URL listed at some point, rather than outlinks that are simply code). Some will ask for a reciprocal link, some will not. One list of non-reciprocal directories is at info.vilesilencer.com. Opinion at the moment is suggesting that non-reciprocal or one-way links are better, although any relevant link is useful. Directories that encode their links are mostly useful for traffic if their Alexa Ranking is high enough. Directories that do not encode outgoing links will help your websites Search Engine Ranking.
Deep Linking:
This is a trick that many newbies in the internet marketing arena miss. After all it's natural to link to your site's homepage when you submit to a link site. But if you think abut it for a moment, if all the links are pointing to your site's home page and you have a new site then only your home page gains any page rank and thus the indexing engines will only index your site one or two levels deep from the home page. It's a much better strategy to go for 'deel linking'. Here you submit links or directories that are newer or much deeper in your site to the link sites. This way you can effectively spread the linking throughout your site and you can instantly create incoming links to new regions or areas of your site.
Submitting to a Web Directory
The first thing you have to do, fairly obviously, is to find yourself a Web Directory to submit to (and it could involve a directory with either one-wway inbound links or reciprocal links (you can even use my links exchange system). Once you have found yourselves several sites to submit to (and the name of the game here is to submit to as many sites as you can) then follow the paths below to make the most of your submission.
Write a Title
It may be obvious, but you need to write a title for your site or the section of your site that you're directing visitors to. If possible you should include a keyword that you're targeting into the title. But only do so it this makes sense within the site's title. Otherwise your site may simply be thrown out of the directory.
Submit to Different Categories
Again, this may seem obvious but it's another trick missed by many beginners. If your site fits into many different categories within the Links Directory and they allow multiple submissions or the selection of multiple categories then ensure that you submit to as many of these categories as possible. This both increases your overall number of in-bound links and also helps with the categorization of your website.
Write your Description
The descriptive entry you use to describe your website is the main thing that will attract visitors from the Web Directory. The easiest way is to pre-write your description before you start submitting to any directories. If you prepare your description in advance you can make the most of your copywriting as well as adding keywords to your description. Also note that the length of descriptions that directory sites want ranges from 150 characters to up to 1000 characters. Write a number of descriptions at different length and then you can use the closest match to enter into the directory's window.
Choose Keywords
Again, as with the description mentioned above, the amount of keywords you can use will vary from directory to directory. Some will not give the option, some will allow you numbers of keywords, whilst others go by numbers of characters. What you should do is make a list of all the relevant keywords for your site and rank them from the most important to the least. Then you can simply enter as many keywords to accompany your site listing as the directory site will allow.
Track your Progress
I cannot stress this often enough or frequently enough. Your submissions to web directories are a form of advertising campaign and like all other advertising campaigns that you are involved in your should track your progress and your success. Keep a list of all the directories you have submitted to — because you will be submitting to several hundred and its far too easy to totally lose track of what you are doing. This way you can track all your submissions, which were successful, which were not as well as keeping track of any login information you need for those directories. If you are using the deep linking and multiple submissions strategies above, also keep track of what other pages you have submitted to each directory and make a separate entry for each URL from your site submitted. This way you can keep your submissions under control.