With the rise in popularity of search engines as a channel for consumers and businesses to seek information, service providers and retailers; companies are now looking towards search engine optimization as a low risk, high return investment.

Directories are places where users go to find websites, just like they do with search engines. While search engines normally accept almost any site or page that is submitted to them without looking at its quality, directories usually only accept sites that offer quality information.

However, like everything to do with internet marketing, it is not that simple. The links have to be formatted in a particular way to offer the greatest increase in search engine positioning. Submitting your site to good directory is also very important.

From where to start:
You should always begin your website promotion agenda by listing your website in the most popular online directories. These directories can significantly affect your search engine ranking so it is a wise move to list your website here before you submit to the search engines.

You can check the link popularity of the site before submission using link popularity tool. Submitting your website to the directories is an easy process, requiring very little effort. However, making certain that the site will be accepted is the difficult part.

There is a growing discussion among webmasters whether it is worth it to submit to the directories. Some says it helps, while others disagree. Some think that it’s not worth to spend a lot of time to submit sites to a large number of directories, claiming that it’s worthless.

Those who disagree can check the search position of the directory before submission using search engine position tool. Let us see now the advantages of directory submission.

Directory submissions are helpful to boost page rank if:

oIf directories are search engine friendly

oIf directories have good page rank

oIf submission is made to relevant category

There is no 100% perfect ways to get at the top of the search engine results. But there are many things you can do to rank high in search engine result. One of them is using one way links. Submitting your site to web directories you can receive a bunch of one way links and good rankings in the search engines.

Common reasons for disapproval of directory submission:

- Site does not fit into the directory’s topic.

- Having under construction or incomplete section.

- Same titles and description as previous submitted site.

Necessary information for directory submission:

URL: This is important because many systems create your listing automatically and without the http:// your link may not work, while in the other directories your site may not work with ‘http://’.

TITLE: It is good to alter the title and description while submitting to different directories.

DESCRIPTION: Prepare the description in such a way that it matches the site.

CATEGORY: When selecting the most appropriate Directory category to submit your site to, conduct a search for your main keyword phrase and view the various related categories.

EMAIL ADDRESS: Many directories require an email address to allow them to verify your listing better to use a free email address instead of a company one to avoid thousands of spam mails.