The Usefulness of Directory Submission in SEO

Common Conception About SEO

When we think of search engine optimization or SEO, we frequently think about increasing our website’s search engine ranking so that our website becomes visible to many web users all over the world. The first thing we think about SEO is the usage of proper keywords for web content. That is well and good for webmasters; keywording always works in SEO.

However, SEO is more than tailoring web content to make them friendlier to search engines. Many webmasters overlook one potent activity that they can do to increase a website’s SEO ranking, and that is submitting their website to internet directories.

How Do Internet Directories Work?

Internet directories categorize and sub-categorize submitted links. That is something that search engines like Google do not do at all. Categorization is something that is done, not by some internal mechanism in the directories, but by human beings. Once you have a website, you have a choice to submit it to an internet directory. Then a human being will review your submitted link. It means that your website will undergo a thorough inspection before it becomes part of the directory.

Once approved, the person who reviewed your website will place it under a category and a sub-category. Your website will become accessible to those who look at the directory for suitable websites about different topics of interest. Your website will also gain targeted web traffic because the human inspector will place it in the proper category.

Search Engines and Internet Directories

The presence of your website in Internet directories does not raise your SEO score per se. Check out the Search Engine Land’s SEO Ranking Factors to learn more about how search engines rank your website. Only the search engines determine SEO rankings. However, search engines can look for links in internet directories and then index the links quickly. Once indexed, the websites become visible in the many search engines out there thus effectively creating a backlink.

If you have search engine optimized content and if you do constant maintenance to your website regularly, you can expect a quick rise in search engine ranking for your website. Also, Internet directories generate backlinks (a backlink is a link straight to your website from other websites).

Search engines give lot of weight to backlinks from internet directories because the links placed on internet directories aren’t the result of link exchanges (search engines frown upon link exchange arrangements).

Other Benefits of Internet Directories

Presence of links in Internet directories really improve Search Engine rankings. There is another way for your website’s search engine ranking to increase with Internet directories. When you submit a website to a directory, you are going to need to enter a website title. A title isn’t the URL; it’s like a book title. It’s what your website is all about.

Now, you can place keywords in the website title as well, thus increasing your website’s SEO ranking even further. That may make you consider submitting your website to directories right now. Don’t worry; submissions are mostly free. There are directories that charge you for a website submission, but there aren’t many of them around. You can even submit to many directories at once.

But Wait… There’s More!

However, lately, large search engines such as Google have been recognizing that there are many websites that garner high SEO rankings through submission to web directories. That is made possible by web directory submission tools that allow you to submit a single website to thousands of directories in just a matter of minutes.

This generates plenty of backlinks for a website, and search engines will consider that as cheating. That, therefore, diminishes SEO ranking or can even get a website banned from search engines altogether. While backlinks are mostly useful in determining SEO rankings, remember that some backlinks are stronger than others. The quality of the backlink from an Internet directory depends upon the quality of the Internet directory itself.

Choosing a Good Internet Directory

So when you finally want to submit your website to an Internet directory, there are some tips that you should keep in mind. Make sure that the administrators of the Internet directory where you are planning to submit your website to are responsible. Make sure that they do their website reviewing duties well. To determine whether they are doing their job well or not, check out other website links in the Internet directory.

If the links are going to bad websites, then you should not submit your website to that directory. You should also find out whether the directory is still maintained in good shape, because search engines will disregard links from directories that aren’t frequently updated. Another measure of quality of an Internet directory is whether the websites are categorized correctly or the website links are just placed there helter-skelter.

To Sum Up

Submitting your website to Internet directories is one of the best SEO marketing methods and it is something that you can do to boost your website’s SEO ranking. So you should make sure that you are going to send your website into good directories, or else all your efforts will go to waste. Of course, you should not disregard your other SEO duties, such as writing content with the right keywords. Nevertheless, submission to website directories is a good supplementary SEO technique.