Link Building Through Web Directories - 5 Tips On Submitting To Directories For Maximum SEO Effect

When submitting to directories there are several things you need to consider to make sure that you maximize the link popularity you receive from each directory.

First when choosing directories to submit to, look for ones that have been indexed by Google and have at least a page rank of 0. If their page rank is showing no data or a gray bar, you may want to wait before submitting to that particular directory. (You can see page rank and find out if a site has been indexed by Google very quickly by downloading Google's tool bar).

Second, be sure to choose the most relevant category to submit your site to. Browse through the directory and find sites that are very similar to yours and submit to the same category that they have submitted to. This will put your link and description with other similar links and descriptions thus making the link more relevant to your site.

Third, when choosing titles make sure you choose terms you want to rank in the search engines for. This is going to be the anchor text of the link that you will get in the directory. Anchor text plays a huge role in where your website will rank. So many times I see people submit titles that no one would ever search and for the most part I would say it is a waste. Choose titles that you know will bring valuable traffic if you ever ranked for the term.

Fourth, mix up the descriptions. It is easy to keep using the same description for every submission that you do, but easy is not always better in link building. You must always keep in mind that search engines want to see links that appear to happen in the natural evolution of the internet. In other words they don't want to see purchased links or links that have the same description attached to it over and over. Chances are that if they see either of those two things, your link will be discounted. Try to write as many unique descriptions as you can. Yes it can be tedious and boring but if you are willing to put in the hard work, chances are your competitors are not and that gives you a decisive advantage over them.

Fifth, try to make your submissions as random as possible. If you do 100 directory submissions every day, that doesn't appear natural to a search engine because they could see you getting 100 new links each day. Make it as random as possible so that you avoid any red flags being put up. (This suggestion is not as critical as the others because search engines wont find every link at the same time but its always better to be safe than end up on page 53 of Google's results).

If you are doing a lot of directory submissions a good resource is found at OneWayTextLink.com. They have a list of about 2500 free web directories you can submit to and have a free tool that allows you to keep track of all of your submissions so you don't forget which directories you have already submitted to.

Adam White is the president of Website Breakthrough LLC (http://www.websitebreakthrough.com) an SEO consulting firm based out of Phoenix, Arizona and has done small business SEO for over 250 clients since 2002.