Throwing a few links on a website can technically be called a directory, but it’s not going to get big results. Certain things are crucial to a quality directory, and nobody will respond positively to a poor quality web directory. Why would they when there are so many better ones out there?

Design

The most basic concept in a good directory is starting with a high quality design. The design should scream competent professional, and all elements of the website should echo the same sentiment. Paid directories especially should make a potential patron feel comfortable and confident about doing business and paying you some of their hard-earned money.

To this end, consider the color scheme, layout, and content of a website. Directories should have adequate descriptions and all content including instructions, frequently asked questions and more should be completely free of errors and be consistent with other directories of the same quality standards.

Categories

Categories are what make a directory more than a list. By categorizing links to other sites or directories, you are making order from what could be chaos. Most individuals looking to list with directories want to feel important. If there are already fifty or sixty links in a category, they won’t feel very special in that niche. It is perhaps better to have too many categories than too few.

When your directory’s top categories begin to fill up, subdivide links into smaller categories within each parent. This not only makes your directory larger and more impressive, it also simplifies navigation and helps with niche marketing tremendously. After all, there are tons of niches within each niche on the internet. Why shouldn’t they be reflected in your directory as well?

Human-Edited

The final, and to some, most important aspect of building a better directory is to screen websites. If you place criteria on submitting a website to your directory, but fail to follow through on those criteria, what is the point of having them? Dead links, redirects, and inappropriate content will try to sneak into the site, and it is your responsibility to keep it all away to protect the integrity of your directory and maintain the quality that others have paid you to have.

Most paying customers won’t be happy if they had to follow guidelines to become listed only to suddenly find themselves in competition with websites that should not have slipped through. Try not to become blinded by potential income or set low standards so that categories fill. There is no point in filling your wallet or categories with junk; it will just hurt you in the long run.

Sometimes what you want is only a few miles away. If you are searching for specific goods or service in your area, a regional directory is most likely the way to go. Just like you wouldn’t search the entire county for a local pizza place, it doesn’t make sense to search the globe for a certain type of online product. By searching listings within a limited region, you are able to find a better match for your needs.

Not So Global

Yes, the world is becoming smaller and people from all over the world are able to exist and share together online. This is wonderful, of course, except when you want to find someone local – especially if you’re looking for a company that also has a brick and mortar component. This is where regional directories come into play.

A quality regional directory allows you to search not only by category, but by city, country, region, or even zip code. This significantly narrows results and allows you to find what you are looking for more quickly than you could otherwise. Some things are great for a world-wide search, and others you want right in your own backyard.

How Regional Directories Work

Companies submit websites or ask to be listed in various regional directories. Some directories are specific to certain industries, and others are more like the phone book with many categories available in a variety of niches. Once a company is listed within a certain category and area, patrons can easily find that company by performing a basic search.

This specific style of listing may generate fewer hits and less traffic than listing globally in large directories, but the quality of the traffic received should be significantly better. An individual searching for freelancers in New Jersey will most likely click though and visit a website if they find a specific list. If that same individual started searching through large directories, it might take some lengthy searching before landing on an individual in the right country, much less the right state.

Any individual in a business that can be done locally should strongly consider being listed in regional directories. Not only will the links back be helpful for site optimization, but the likelihood of being discovered and useful by the right visitors is substantially higher in a regional directory than elsewhere.

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Most webmasters know submitting a website to the proper directories can be a huge asset to optimizing and developing a website. If you are one of the few who didn’t know, you certainly do know now. Many webmasters are busy developing websites and working hard on other aspects of search engine optimization. They simply don’t have the time or energy it takes to properly submit a website to the relevant directories, and even if they did have a bit of time and inclination, they can never hit as many directories as a professional. There are just too many out there.

Directory Submission Services

Many individuals and companies offer submission services to directories. They take your URL and description and manually submit it to countless directories and search engines. Many of these same companies and individuals offer reciprocal link finding services and other helpful SEO practices. The trick is finding the right company for your needs.

Anyone can claim to offer directory submission services, but many are amateurs and less professional than existing companies with years of experience. An individual who has worked at submissions for years has established relationships and tricks of the trade to make sure his or her service is well worth the price.

Sure, you can pay someone a few bucks to list your website a few places, but for high quality service, you may want to consider paying a little bit more. Individuals who specialize in directory submissions aren’t willing to share their knowledge and specialty with just anyone for some spare change. These individuals have usually been in business for a long while and know the ropes.

First Step in SEO

Submissions are often the first step in search engine optimization once a website is complete. Of course a webmaster has already worked in highly relevant keywords and content, but when it’s time to get the ball rolling on gaining PR and traffic, directory submissions are often the very first step.

As it is an area that requires some time, research and knowledge, many webmasters feel more comfortable asking a service to handle this aspect while they focus on other aspects of link building and page rank. Webmasters are busy, and they need all the professional help they can afford to make a website profitable and highly developed. Directory submission services are one of the easiest ways to do exactly that.

It is every webmaster’s dream to see their website ranked at the very top or at least see it in the first few results of major search engines. This can be a daunting task because not only does it require an input of time and patience but also could be make a hole in the pocket. So it becomes very important to choose the correct medium to enhance their website promotion techniques to avoid being lost in the virtual world. A web directory is an excellent tool to achieve this end. There are many web directories on the Net which will list your site and the main purpose that will be achieved will be that you will be promoting your website by gaining an inbound link. Directories are also well categorized which will increase the flow of traffic that will be adding to the search engine ratings. This will further up your site’s search engine status quo and you will be able to gain many back links. These things are easier said than done and this is a strategy that works best in the long run. And it need not necessarily be a costly affair at all because you will find many popular web directories do have a free link option or even allow reciprocal linking.

Free web directories could take a little more time to include your link as compared to a premium listing and this is understandable as the directory could be human edited and offered for free but they will still do the same work for you. So it is necessary to cultivate patience and it will be a good idea to maintain a list of the directories you have submitted to with all their details. You could categorize the file according to the free directories you have applied to, the current status of your site whether pending or added and any other additional details. Also make sure when submitting to directories you have a short write-up describing your site, products keeping in mind the keywords that get search engine hits. If you are including your site in multiple categories then make sure you include keywords for each category you will be adding your site to.

Ablaze Directory - Free Website Directory is a great free, human edited web directory that lists sites and can get you some great free link publicity. When this article was written there were 21 categories and 956 subcategories by which the directory is arranged and they are constantly adding more sites to their bank of over 400 and counting. There are also premium listings available that appear on the main page with thumbnail previews to let your visitors get a taste of what’s in store. And there are additional listings for a site blog updated often and top sites and new sites so even when your site is newly accepted into the directory there is an opportunity for it to be publicized and with time and traffic you will surely be shifted to the top sites category.

Today there are a multitude of online forums, these are interactive and tend to be more user based and dynamic with accordance to the trends on the internet and the world in general. You can find a forum for anything at all, from support groups to graphics there will be a community of like-minded individuals that you will enjoy being a part of. And it’s a great networking tool and gives the opportunity for different people from all parts of the world to voice their opinions and showcase their talents. In short the growing popularity of forums ensures that they are high traffic sites. Thus you will also notice that some popular forums have amazing page ranks on Google.

Forums are also an excellent way to multiple your money or promote your business. One of the easiest methods of promotion is adding a custom signature to your posts. This is an option that almost all forums will give you; you can add a small signature that automatically gets generated each time you post so adding your URL or any other details. On a high traffic forum your post and signature will be read by all the people visiting the forum so it is easy to do the math about the kind of link popularity you can achieve just by this simple task. Another way of getting free advertisement is just being a regular poster and having a completed profile so that people who read your posts and want to know more about you could view your profile and visit your site or contact you as may be the case. Also getting a feel of the market is also easily done in a forum where you could ask for an opinion on a certain product to know how people think and even use the ideas to generate a new, much-needed product. Asking questions, getting guidance and learning from other’s experiences are all part of forum involvement. And selling affiliate products and sponsored ads are also bonus money makers.

Now that we have seen the important role that forums play in the internet community maybe you’d like to join a forum to further your business. There are zillions of forums out there but a smart player knows the importance of getting on forums that have significance and searching for high traffic and relevant forums has never been easier thanks to this directory that indexes all the major forums. You can visit ForumBase.org Forum Directory for a complete listing of internet forums and all the forum resources you could possible need by keyword relevance. There are various options you can get to list your forum if you are a forum owner and they do offer a free option which only needs a reciprocal link in return. All forums are well categorized for easy location; you will also find a list of the latest additions and the top forums all with preview thumbnails.

Listing your forum here will not only get your forum more hits and more members but also increase the chances of gaining more ads and initiates you to the large potential market in forums.

Web Directories provide an organized listing of web sites based on their theme and concept. Directory of such web sites helps people know about various resources and explore them. Directories are also seen as a single umbrella with diversity of web sites accessible under it. Just like a telephone directory, where one finds contact details for a name or ownership of a telephone number, here in web directories they would find a categorized listing of sites based on their purpose or utility.

Directories have evolved in last few years. What started as merely a collection of web sites has now progressed to become a resource for webmasters to garner increased attention for their sites as well as enhance their site’s search engine rankings, more so, because of value appended to, by the search engines for directories with quality content. Webmasters work towards getting their sites included in as many directories as they can, since it helps their sites show up higher in the search engine results should any one try to locate the sites with keywords or core concept similar to theirs. Higher search engine ranking ensures better visibility and brings in traffic. Directory inclusion is seen as one of the Search Engine Optimization strategies and widely used by many webmasters and SEO experts.

The above described use has resulted in surge of directories, but then not every directory is rich in content or brings in the expected returns for webmasters or fulfills the purpose for which they exist. Some directories are more of a dumping ground, where every site is blindly accepted, irrespective of their content or purpose. Amidst stiff competition, few directories have lived up to keep their standards. Such directories have human editors, who value the sites included in their listing. They carefully scan the submitted sites, analyze the content and only when convinced, and accept the same. Quality directories are a very useful resource and their ever increasing number has necessitated the existence of a bigger directory which exclusively lists the directories and not the web sites. Such Directory of Directories has come into existence due to increasing demand of lists where webmasters would be able to submit their sites. Just like directories would maintain categorized listing of web sites, Directory Of Directories maintain an organized listing of such directories based on various parameters, including but not limited to the page ranking, general or niche directory listing, accepting free or paid submissions and more.

Directory of Directories thus gives an easy access to huge number of directories which themselves have bigger lists of web sites. Significance and utility of such directories can’t be matched up with words. In time to come, Directory of Directories can be expected to play a vital role for both webmasters and visitors.

Internet has invaded into many households thereby reducing world to a global village. Now you can explore the world, gain knowledge, get updated about events and even shop, right from your computer with click of a mouse.

Webmasters have realized the potential of internet in bringing them business and traffic. Significance of Web Directories in presenting visitors with vast resource of diversified sites remains undisputed. Serving organized lists of various web sites, web directories are seen as a mini search portal where you can find more than one site from different webmasters though dwelling upon similar core concept or theme. Advent of page ranking concept resulted in many webmasters submitting their sites in the web directories. Adding web site links in Web Directories is now seen as a vital search engine optimization strategy. Web Directories also serve as a resource for visitors presenting them with different site links for the theme they search.

Webmasters are also coming up with web sites that offer a broad array of resources and services, such as forums, chat boards, e-mails, search engines, shopping carts and much more. Such web sites with broader array of services are referred to, as Web Portals. The first Web portals were online services, such as AOL, providing access to the Web, but by now most of the traditional search engines have transformed themselves into Web portals to secure their user database and survive in the competitive market. Web Portals in mid-1990s used to be starting point of Web browsers and thus gained a lot of attention, with most of them starting as web directory or search engines. Even though many old players lost during dot-com bubble burst in 2000-2001, few like yahoo remain popular till date. Web Portals work as single resource site to use multitude of services or features, thereby saving visitor’s time and efforts. Web Portals have diversified into Government portals, entertainment portals, environmental portals, business portals, corporate portals, investment portal and lots more, with each portal catering to needs of its user/visitor base. Business portals are designed to be able to work on multiple platforms and share collaboration in workplaces. With ability to provide many resources under one roof, Web Portals are again catching up to achieve their pre-bubble burst glory.

A web directory or an internet directory is like a powerhouse packed with sites that are organised according to user-specific needs that save time, energy and cost. They are an immensely useful tool for webmasters who are looking for a way to promote their sites, increase inbound traffic with SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and gain a higher Page Rank on Google. If you are a webmaster imagine having to surf and go through innumerable link exchanges and instead just adding your link to a popular web directory and getting more traffic on your site by targeting people looking for a specific service.

Though not all directories are significant, the most popular directories include The Open Directory Project (ODP or DMOZ), Yahoo, Zeal and Buzzle. Google, along with many other popular search engines tend to generate their search results by dipping into these directories for reference. If you were to run a Google search, you’d notice the number of results that directly use the ODP links and categories. A plus point is that the information stored in ODP is literally borrowed by thousands of other websites and search engines so that just sets up a chain reaction for obtaining more free links! The same goes for the Yahoo directory.

Directories fall into two main categories, namely: general and niche. A general web directory is a directory that contains a listing of many sites of different categories and then sub-categories. A niche directory would be a directory that aims towards a specific grouping like a shopping directory is a directory for all listings for Primitive Arts and Crafts, Consumer Products. This helps in searching harder-to-find content that generally doesn’t show in a prominent position on a major search engine. Then there are free directories that do not charge any fees for inclusion, paid directories that charge a fee for site submission and reciprocal link directories that have a link back to the directory as a prerequisite. Sometimes free directories may offer a prominent link or a higher listing for a nominal fee. The ODP is an example of a human-edited directory which is created and maintained by human editors who are volunteers and may have excellent command over a certain subject. Human edited web directories are known for more relevant links as they are edited and maintained manually and the sites scanned and approved for content.

There are also directories like Yahoo that archive lists of certain sites they choose as a “cool site”. This cool site directory could be in the form of an archived list, a random site generator that generates a site-per-click irrespective of category or the current cool pick. Some of these sites maintain an archive of their older cool picks for visitors to browse through the formerly chosen sites, others have themed sections and still others could probably generate a list of the Top Ten cool sites classifying them on good site principles. The knowledgeable networking system and general-to-sub hierarchy also cross-references links across categories with similar content to make searching with generic keywords more efficient.

Directories are an easy way to find something for everyone. As a surfer with a specific necessity or a webmaster wanting to promote their site, a directory could serve as a handy contrivance to obtain optimum results.