Doing Your Own Directory Submissions

While most people prefer to hire an SEO expert to submit their website to web directories, it’s certainly something you can do yourself if you have the time (and the patience). This post looks at some basic steps to doing your own directory submissions.

Choosing Web Directories

The first step is choosing your web directories. You’ll find a ton of them with a simple internet search. In fact, there are so many of them your list of directories can get pretty long pretty fast. That’s why keeping your list organized in an Excel spreadsheet is a smart idea. Sorting your list alphabetically will help prevent duplicate directory submissions.

Check For Noindex Or Nofollow Coding

The main purpose behind submitting to directories is increasing your search engine optimization efforts, so avoid directories that are noindex or nofollow. This means the search engines will not index or follow your link. Basically, it makes your submission useless when it comes to increasing your search engine optimization. An easy way to check for noindex or nofollow coding is to right click the directory to view the source code.

Starting Your Directory Submissions

Once you have a good strong list of web directories, it’s time to start submitting. Don’t submit to every web directory on your list all at once. The search engines won’t like it and you won’t accomplish what you hope to with search engine optimization. You can actually hurt your SEO efforts by doing too many directory submissions at a time. The best way to handle directory submissions is a little at a time. Submitting to two or three web directories every other day, for example.

Start with directory submissions that most closely match your niche. For example, if you’re a dentist, start with dental directories first. Then move on to directories fitting your geographical location and then move to general web directories last.

The Right Category Is Critical

Make sure your directory submissions target the right category. This is often the most difficult part of directory submissions as all web directory categories are not the same and many have sub-categories and sub-sub-categories to navigate through. While it sounds like a pain to find the right category, don’t skip this step because being in the right category is critical for success. Some web directories will reject directory submissions in the wrong category as being irrelevant or spam. If you can’t find a category for your website, don’t waste your time. Skip the directory and move on.

Submitting Your Website

Most web directories offer an ‘add listing,’ ‘add site,’ ’suggest a site,’ or ’submit your URL,’ link that makes it easy for you to get started. Unfortunately, they don’t all operate the same, which can make reading the directions for each web directory time consuming. From there, you’ll usually choose your category and will need to fill out a submission form containing the terms and conditions. Read the terms and conditions before agreeing and submitting your website. Most websites offer free listings, but not all do. Some require a reciprocal link on your website and some charge a fee for a directory submissions.

You’ll also need to write a short, keyword focused description of your website, include an anchor text link, and will usually need to fill in a captcha code. The captcha code is why most automated submissions don’t go through since software can’t see captcha codes and why doing manual directory submissions works best.

There’s a whole lot more to directory submissions, but these are the basics that will get you started. If you’re interested in the incredible SEO benefits of directory submissions, but don’t want the hassle of doing it yourself, hire an expert that knows how to do them right — an expert like Seattle SEO Consultant!