Importance of Directories for Bloggers
A lot of people in the online business say that directory submissions are played out and not worth there weight and gold anymore. I disagree with this completely though and I feel that directory submissions are basically mandatory for bloggers. Directory submissions won’t help bring in direct traffic to your blog, but they do build your backlinks up fairly quickly and therefore boost your SERP rankings. You’re much better off taking your time with directory submissions and not doing them all at once. You’ll notice a brief increase in SE traffic from submitting to directories quickly, but if you take your time and only do a few everyday then you’ll notice a more steady flow of SE traffic. There are both free and paid directories that you can submit to and I personally don’t use any of the paid directories. Either I feel there not worth the value or in some cases just too costly for a blogger to spend on directory submissions.
Instead of spending money on directory submissions I simply submit to five directories everyday that I haven’t used before and this way I’m getting a guaranteed five backlinks each day for my blog. Google will notice that backlinks are being built everyday on a consistent basis and most importantly the links will seem naturally built to Google which is vital. When you submit to too many directories at once you run the chance of Google thinking that your submissions were done through automation which would hurt your SERP rankings. Being completely natural is the only way for you to go when building links to your blog and that’s why submitting to only 3-10 directories daily is ideal.
Since you’ll be submitting to so many directories there isn’t really a need to list any here because you’ll end up finding them anyways. There are regular directories, blog directories and niche directories, now you’ll want to submit to all three types of directories on a regular basis. Regular directories allow any type of site from almost any category you could imagine, blog directories only accept blogs and niche directories will only accept sites/blogs from the niche that the directory is about. I find that blog directories and niche directories hold good value so you should seek these types of directories out first and then move on to regular directories. There are hundreds of directory lists with thousands of directories on them which you can find easily on the internet. One of the best resources that I use for finding directories is DirectoryCritic.com which always has an updated list of directories. They also have niche directories so it’s a site worth checking out.
You’ll notice that some directories take awhile before accepting your submission but that is fine and don’t expect them to do it in one day every time. Directory owners are usually busy approving and rejecting hundreds of submissions each day so sometimes they won’t get to yours for awhile. One last thing that you need to know about directories is that some will require a reciprocal link and some won’t. I personally only submit to directories that don’t need a reciprocal link unless it’s a good blog directory or niche directory. There isn’t any reason a regular directory should ask for a reciprocal though and generally when I come across ones that do I skip them.