Directory Submission: Meaning, Importance, And Tips To Level Up Your SEO Game

directory submission

“Can you use directory submission for SEO?”

This question is the most common one asked on forums that I’ve come across.

Directory Submission: Meaning, Importance, And Tips To Level Up Your SEO Game

After several years of experience, I would say that directory submission is one of the easiest ways to acquire high-quality and unidirectional links.

Undoubtedly, directories were the staple of SEO at some point of time. In fact, directories existed even before search engines and were considered the primary way to navigate the web.

All you need to do is copy and paste the same description to hundreds of directories, and you’re sorted!

Today, SEO has become far more complicated, and even today, directory submission can still play a pivotal role in your SEO campaign if done correctly.

Wait! Before going further, let me give you an in-depth understanding of directory submission.

Directory Submission: What is that?

It is the best way to drive traffic to your website and get noticed by search engines. To do this, your website should have both on-site and off-site signals.

In order to determine your ranking position on various search engines, links are essential. We all agree on this, right?

Directory Submission is a great way to improve your link building and is an excellent off-page factor to optimize your webpage. It’s a practice where your website URL and details on the web in a directory are submitted under a particular category.

For instance: If you’re a fashion vlogger, your site can be submitted under the fashion category to help you get backlinks. It resembles a phone directory with a list of websites in each category.

It’s main duty is to link to your website and acquire quality links pointing to your website to increase your chances of ranking well.

Google keeps an eye on all the links pointing to your website and gives you a brief idea about how many people liked your website.

Directory submission is the process of submitting a website’s link to a directory of websites, organized by category. These directories can be general in nature, listing websites from a variety of industries, or they can be specific to a particular niche or industry.

Directory submission is often used as a way to improve a website’s search engine rankings, as search engines may use the presence of a website in a directory as a signal of the website’s quality or relevance.

In addition, being listed in a directory can help to drive traffic to a website, as users may browse through the directory to find websites related to a particular topic.

There are many directory submission sites available on the internet, and it can be overwhelming to try to determine which ones are worth using. Some key factors to consider when choosing a directory submission site include:

  • Quality of the directory: It is important to choose a directory that is well-maintained and organized, as this can help to ensure that your website is listed in the appropriate category and that users can easily find it.
  • Authority of the directory: Some directories are considered more authoritative than others, and having a website listed in one of these directories can be more beneficial for search engine rankings. Look for directories that are well-established and have a good reputation.
  • Cost: Some directory submission sites charge a fee to list a website, while others are free. Consider your budget and whether the potential benefits of being listed in a particular directory justify the cost.
  • Niche focus: If your website is focused on a particular niche or industry, look for directories that are specific to that niche. This can help to ensure that your website is being seen by users who are interested in the products or services that you offer.
  • Submission process: Some directory submission sites have a very straightforward submission process, while others can be more complicated. Consider how much time and effort it will take to submit your website to a particular directory, and whether it is worth it.

There are both general and niche-specific directory submission sites available. Some popular general directory submission sites include DMOZ, Yahoo! Directory, and Best of the Web. These directories tend to be quite selective about which websites they will list,

so it may be more challenging to get your website accepted. Niche-specific directories can be a good option for websites that are focused on a particular industry or topic, as they may be more likely to list your website.

It is important to keep in mind that directory submission is just one aspect of a comprehensive search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. While being listed in a directory can be beneficial, it is not a guarantee of improved search engine rankings.

In order to rank well in search results, it is important to focus on other SEO factors such as keyword optimization, high-quality content, and inbound links from reputable websites.

Overall, directory submission can be a useful tool for improving the visibility of a website, particularly for smaller websites that may not have as much visibility on search engines.

It is important to choose directories that are of high quality and relevant to your website, and to carefully consider the cost and effort required to submit your website to each directory.

Usually, there are 3 types of directory submission.

  • Paid Web Listing: Here, the directories site’s owner charges for the submission and will get your link approved within 24 hours or even less. This is also known as a featured web listing and aids in getting backlinks, and offers a package every year or lifetime.
  • Free Web Listing: It’s totally free for Directory Submission since no one charges for free or even regular submission. Also known as Regular Web Listing, here there’s no guarantee that the website will get approved by the administration.
  • Reciprocal Regular Web Listing: This type of web listing submits a reciprocal link to your site whenever you activate the directory link. It only allows the Director administrator to approve the link.

Directory submission in SEO enables various advantage to your website like:

  • Faster indexing

 It increases your brand visibility wherein your site gets detected, crawled indexed, and even re-crawled faster in major search engines.

  • High link popularity

 

It gives you 2 links per successful directory submission viz:

  • Contextual category link
  • Unique directory listing link
  • High page value and ranking

 

The above 2 links will increase the page ranking and value with an increase.

  • Social media sharing and brand awareness

 

All business directories have social media buttons that allow you to reach a wider audience, increase brand awareness, and bring traffic to your website.

  • Brings in more customers

 

Better link popularity, indexing, PageRank, brand building, keyword targeting, and traffic will result in more customers.

In a nutshell, SEO experts get the benefit of backlinks received from directory submission. It offers safe, high-quality no follow backlinks for your website and attracts traffic to your website.

It helps in increasing your page rank by building authority backlinks. Every blogger should include this in their SEO strategy. This is the right way to experience growth in your website and blog rankings by submitting your URL to web directories.

If you wish to see your blog or web page beyond the realms of your activity area, then you need to know the importance of directory submission for SEO. Scroll down.

Let me tell you about the Importance of Directory Submission in SEO.

 

  1. Get quality and safe backlinks

SEO experts are hugely benefited from directory submission. It’s the best way to get safe, and quality backlinks since most of the directories are spam probes, i.e., they’re manually supervised for wrong submissions.

Directory submission offers SEO friendly backlinks along with do follow backlinks that are great for SERPs. The best thing about it is that it enables you to diversify your backlink profile required for SEO.

  1. Acquire targeted traffic

All the web directories are organized in a way that allows your targeted audience to reach you. Relevant links are placed under a particular category or subcategory, which helps get targeted traffic to your website or web page.

 

  1. Use the anchor text of your choice

This is another perk of directory submission wherein you’re free to use your desired anchor text.

While submitting your links to web directories, you’re allowed to enter a site title that is different from your URL and use the anchor text keywords to make it more SEO friendly.

By doing so, you can generate SEO anchor text for your business and improve your search engine rankings.

  1. Reach out to a huge audience

Marketers are always on the hunt for driving more traffic to their websites. You have a large section of the audience from a particular demographic region. However, it’s better to grab a larger set of audience irrespective of their locations.

If you wish to reach more people, then directory submission is the best alternative as it can display your site for every related search query on their database.

This increases your chance of getting noticed by audiences that have no idea about your existence.

Let me end this article with some essential tips that should be remembered when submitting directories.

 

  1. Make sure you submit your link to the right category

To speed up your listings, it’s vital to select the right category to submit the link. By doing this, you’re making your editor’s work easier, who won’t take much time to submit the link.

In addition to this, the search engine will also look out for other links that will lead you to the page you’re listed, and the theme will boost your rankings.

  1. Keep a record

Ensure you keep the name of the directory and the date of submission into a log or something like this. It’s advisable to keep a record of all these things to prevent you from submitting to a directory more than once.

  1. Never lose patience

Disclaimer: Free listing takes a load of patience.

The paid listing is given more priority. Thus, you might want to wait to see speedy results.

Unfortunately, it can take several months to get into some directories that can be annoying sometimes. I had to wait for 7 months, and believe me, that was frustrating.

Over to you!

I have tried to make you understand that submitting your website’s link, web page, or blog plays a pivotal role in building some quality link structure that aids in improving your search engine ranking.

Luckily, there are thousands of directories on the internet that offer the opportunity to publish a link, which is directed to your website.

You can save you time and effort only if you choose the right SEO-friendly directory. Make sure you select the right category or subcategory.

Never lose your control and patience as the results turn out to be fruitful and will enhance the quality of your SEO ranking.

Pro tip: Never overdo. It’s better to get listed in a few directories for better SEO benefits.

Hope you had a good read and liked the information above. If yes, then don’t forget to share and comment. I welcome all your questions in the post below.