Do we still need to use directory submission?

Directory submission has been one for the oldest SEO strategy and this was used by webmasters to generate quality traffic to their websites even before they understood the importance of the links that they got from the directories. Directories were originally started with the intention of providing the Internet users with information about the services that they were searching online. They served as door ways for websites through which more visitors entered. Today the original intention has been changed to something else that is totally different. All the webmasters submit their links to websites but the intention today is to gain one way links from these directories.

Now the question is do we continue to use directory submission as one of the top SEO strategies? The answer is, yes. We need to give the same importance directory submission even today because of the importance Google gives to quality links and how it uses this concept to assign pagerank to websites. Though there are webmasters who say that pagerank is no more a required phenomenon, majority of the webmasters still believe in pagerank.

Submitting to directories is really a tedious process and more than the submission process short listing the directories is all the more time consuming posts. As discussed in one of the earlier posts, automatic submission is out of question for the reasons discussed. So manual submission would also mean manual selection of the directories to which you would like to submit. Start with directories with high page rank and go down the list. You will be able to get the list of directories online if you make a quick online research. However, you may not be able to get a totally exhaustive list you may have to continue to update your directories database. You don’t have to wait until you collect all the directories online, it would be ideal if two people worked on the directory submission. One person can be dedicated to submit to the directories while the other person can compile an exhaustive database.

Most people go by the pagerank of the homepage and it may not be that effective to go by the pagerank of the homepage. All the directories have specific categories under which you will be submitting your website. So the page in which your site will appear should have good pagerank and only then you will be able to see your page rank as well increase accordingly.

Never start your directory submission with random submission. Have a decisive plan, strategy and target for the total number of directories that you would like to submit. Though this is a never ending process you can see better results by approaching directory submission in a phased manner. When you are submitting your website to the directories, make it point to submit it to the right categories. Submissions to in appropriate categories may lead to the deletion of your site from the listing and also you may not be able to get targeted traffic to your website. So pay attention to the entire submission process so that you can reap the benefits of the entire exercise.

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