Web Directories

Submitting to directories is a great way to receive traffic and increase your link popularity. They work in a similar way to search engines. It is essential that you submit your website into an appropriate directory and category within that directory so that you will be receiving focused traffic. Some directories have no listing fee, while others will require payment or a reciprocal link. It's good to list your site with all the free directories, but would not be worth while to list your site with all the fee based web directories. We have devised an easy step by step system to get your site listed, and see if it's worth paying any fees. As some directories require a reciprocal link you may first want to follow our Link Partners section step 1 if you don't already have a link partners page setup.

Step 1. Preparing to submit

Before submitting to the directories you need to prepare and make sure you have all the details you'll need ready. This includes sorting out your keywords, and descriptions of varying lengths. In step 2 we provide you with a Spreadsheet submission template. This will guide you through submission to each directory, and help you keep all your submission information in one place. For those of you who are not members, here is a sample taken from the directory submission template for gathering the submission information. If you are a member continue to step 2 and download the main directory submission template.

Step 2. Submitting to the directories

We have compiled a list of over 100 web directories, complete with Alexa number and PageRank. We've also included a list of over 35 UK directories and shopping portals. Download our directory submission template spreadsheet. It contains a full guide for Preparing to submit, and columns for all the data you should collect for each directory. If you have multiple web sites, you'll need to make a copy of this spreadsheet and enter the information for each site separately. If you find any directories that are not included on our list please contact us with their URL's. Admittedly it is time consuming to submit to all these directories. But don't forget you only need to do it once, and the benefits are ten fold. We offer a directory submission service, where we will submit your site to as many of the 100 directories as possible, and provide you with a completed directory submission spreadsheet with recommendations on which of the pay for listing directories would be worth while for your site.

Step 3. Checking your listing

About 2 months after submitting your sites to the directories you'll need to check that you actually got listed. Go through the sites in your directory submission spreadsheet and check that you are in the directory by running a search for your site name or url. If you have not been listed, check the submission guidelines (some site will take more than 2 months to get you listed) and resubmit your site.

Step 4. Specific directories

These can provide you with the best source of directory traffic available. The directories we provided you with above are general with all kinds of categories. You get many directories now that only list sites in one specific field. Directories such as HotScripts.com list only CGI, Perl, PHP, ASP and Java Scripts for people to use on their website's. Others such as Musical Online list only sites and resources related to music. Use Google to search out these directories specific to your sites content. Alexa can be useful for finding similar directories after you have found the first. Some directories will even have a category where they link to other directories. Create your own specific directory spreadsheet based on the general one we provided.