Link Directory Submission Tips

By admin • April 12th, 2009

Link Directory submission is often considered one of the most tedious and time consuming methods of link development. Further adding to the tedium are unreliable directories filled with spam, demanding fees or reciprocal links, or a just plain difficult to use site. I have received quite a lot of questions recently concerning different aspects of link submission and have compiled a list of tips that you may find helpful in your directory submission efforts.

Use Software to Help

Still using Excel spreadsheets or text file lists of directories to manage your submission process? Get some software to help manage and automate the process. I don’t mean use one of those robot programs that tries to submit to thousands of sites by itself, those are junk. What you are looking for is a program to help manage the submissions, keep track of where you have submitted to, and auto fill out the text fields for you so you don’t have to keep typing the submission in manually over and over. Try Directory Submitter, the standard version is free and it will speed up your submission process significantly. There are others out there as well you can try.

Skip Reciprocal Only Directories

Many link directories will try to require you to place a reciprocal link on your website for you to be listed. Don’t bother with this. After all, unless your website happens to be about link directories, why would you want a link to a random site like that on your website thats about pets or something? Also, directories shut down frequently and you don’t want to have to keep monitoring their site to make sure the site is still up and they are still displaying your link. There are thousands of directories that do not require a reciprocal link, just stick with those.

Skip Paid Submissions

Never pay to get your link placed in a link directory. It’s a total waste of money that you could be spending on something else. Most directory links are not particularly valuable, and paying to even get listed makes them even less valuable. There are an absolute ton of completely free directories and that is where you should focus your efforts. One possible exception to this rule is for a high ranking niche directory that is closely related to your websites subject. In those situations it may be worthwhile to pay a small amount to get listed. If you come across a directory in your submission software that requires either a reciprocal link or a paid fee, just remove it from the list and move on to the next one. If you have more than one site, trimming out the bad directories will make it easier to get through the list the second time around.

Submit At Will

There are some people who think that if you submit to too many directories in a short period of time, the search engines will pick up on all the flurry of links and think something fishy is going on. In reality, if you submit 100 links today, you don’t get listed by all of them immediately. Your site will actually get approved by them slowly in a trickle over the coming days, weeks, and even months. Add to that that some of your links will likely be rejected, and the search engines will be respidering those sites at random times. All those factors will make your 100 submissions take months to actually show up in the search engines, and some likely won’t show up at all.

Enlist Others, Find the Time

Even with all the submission tricks, directory submission can still be pretty tedious. I put the program on my receptionist’s computer and showed her how to use it. She submits whenever she doesn’t have anything else to do. If you don’t have a receptionist, how about enlisting the help of your spouse or sibling? The process is quite easy to learn and once the method is picked up, its easy even for a computer novice to do. If you must do it all yourself, you can use whatever small chunks of free time you have to submit. I used to submit whenever I only had a few minutes here and there and I didn’t have enough time to get into any serious projects. Submitting while on the phone is also good since it doesn’t require a lot of concentration.

Mix it Up

Make sure you always create 5-10 different versions of your title and description. The title can have the same meaning, but just mix it up a bit with the wording here and there or describe your site in a slightly different way. This is an important step, and if you are using directory submission software, it can hold all those various title and descriptions and fill in different ones for you. I tend to type in the main title I want to use 5 times the same, then type in 5 alternates. That way my main description is used 50% of the time and the other titles make up the other 50% between them. This gives a much more natural feel to your links in the eyes of the search engines.