My Traffic Generation Strategy – Part 2 – Web Directory Submissions

November 21, 2009

Search Engine Submissions vs Web Directory Submissions

Your home business success is based on so many factors, and traffic generation strategies are very important. Web Directory submissions can increase your traffic.

We all submit our blogs to Google via a sitemap, or by directly submitting our URL’s, but not all of us submit to web directories. When we have submitted our sitemaps, the Google spiders look for new web pages, and index them according to the relevance it attaches to them, based on various factors such as:-

Relevance of content
Organisation of the content
Navigation and links on your web pages
Outgoing links and anchor texts
Incoming links from websites and the page rank of those websites

With web directories you must submit manually, and the submissions are reviewed by humans.

OK so why should we submit to Web Directories?

The search engines crawl these web directories thoroughly.
Major web directories are well ranked with the major search engines, and so attract a lot of traffic via search engine results pages.
Many people also go directly to web directories, because they are categorised and easily searchable.
Additionally traffic from web directories is targeted, because people click on your link from within the appropriate category.
The links are approved by humans and so are given more credibility.
Your site will get a one way incoming link from the directory, which helps your google rankings.

So directories are a good way to accumulate valuable incoming links, and boost the visibility of your website.

How to prepare your site for web directory submission?

Ensure you submit your site under the correct category – don’t leave it for the directory to decide.
Write a clear and concise description of your site.
Make sure your site loads quickly – some directories will simply not list you if your site is slow to load.
Make sure you have a clearly defined navigation structure, and that it is easy to find each page, for your visitor as well as the directory editor.

Which Web Directories?

There are hundreds if not thousands of web directories out there. Probably the best known ones are DMoz and Yahoo. Some directories charge for the submission, but most do offer a free listing.

This site lists over 1000 web directories if you want to submit yourself.

The task of manually submitting to each directory is time consuming and tedious, and I do recommend outsourcing this task.

Check out the WARRIOR FORUM for special offers on directory submissions.

I have used this one, and think it represents good value and he has received good reviews of his work.

Do bear in mind that it can take time for your site to get listed.

Another tip is to open a separate email account for directory submissions because you will be flooded with emails from the directories, acknowledging your submission or confirming the listing.

Hope this post has helped you to decide on your strategy for whether or not to submit to web directories, to help your home business success.