Looking to build traffic to your website? Find out how submitting your site to the right directories can help you lure visitors and improve your visibility in the major search engines. Learn how to pick the right directories, and how to avoid the ones that won’t benefit you.

You just got your website online. Everything is setup and you’re ready to go. Excitement is high and the time has come to open your virtual doors to the millions and millions of Internet users around the globe. You put out the cyber welcome mat and declare your site ready for action. But, instead of sitting and watching the users trample over one another to get to your site, you see little to no traffic.

Don’t worry! This is something every webmaster goes through and is to be expected. (Well, webmasters in the late 90’s expected to launch their site and be millionaires the next morning, but times have changed since those wonderful days!)

But there are some quick and easy things you can do to begin building your ‘link network,’ which will ultimately help drive traffic to your site. Since the Internet’s conception, the notion has been that sites link to one another, while web surfers click from place to place. Thus, the challenge begins: Get your site linked to as many others as possible.

You can start contacting other websites offering to trade links (but be prepared to invest a lot of time); you can buy links (but be prepared to fork out some cash); you can join link-trading programs (but be prepared to get a lot of irrelevant sites linking to you); or you can start submitting your website to web directories.

What Is A Web Directory?
A web directory is a compilation of sites organized by category or topic. Most web directories have multiple levels of categories, progressing from general to highly specific. In addition, a web directory editor will likely have to approve your site, lending it at a certain degree of credibility. Being listed in a directory ensures that if a web surfer finds their way into a specific category, they don’t just see your competitors, they see you! And, if they can see your link, they can click it, producing traffic to your site.

A Web Directory Listing Helps with SEO
If you have a website, you undoubtedly know the importance of ranking well in Google and other major search engines. These search engines count links from other sites as votes for your site, which helps determine your ranking, or position in the search results. There are a lot of other parts of the algorithm and this brief explanation doesn’t do it justice. However, it serves the point that links improve your ranking, and that’s something every website owner needs to know.

A link in a directory that is spidered by Google (and a lot are) will count as a vote for your site. This improves your ranking, and yet again helps drive traffic to your site. It’s important to note that not all directories help with SEO. Sometimes, a web directory will link to your site through a special URL that is often a programming CGI script. If the URL is not a direct link to your site, then the search engines don’t count it as a vote. Therefore, it’s best to pick directories that offer a direct one-way link to your site. (This way, you get more bang for your buck: traffic from the directory and improved search engine ranking.)

Relevancy Matters
If you trade links with random sites, then you are theoretically building your ‘link network,’ but you are sacrificing the quality of that network. Web searchers who are looking for information on a particular topic often use resources that link to a variety of sites related to what they seek. This makes web directories the perfect destination.

Since directories are categorized by topics, a person can arrive in the directory and have one-click access to a variety of resources. You definitely want to be one of those resources! Plus, when the other search engines pick up your link, it will count for more since it is surrounded by relevant content, which is most likely filled with your important keywords.

As you build your link network, you’ll continue to see increased traffic. And if you use web directories as your vehicle, you are essentially paving more paths to your site. Several good submissions in popular directories will help get you rolling. The best part is that many directories are free, so this jump start won’t even hurt your bottom line.

Good luck and happy submitting!

 What is a Web Directory?
Do you have a website and are looking for more traffic? If so you don't have to despair trying to figure out how you will direct traffic to your site because there is a tried and true way to increase your traffic in no time! The best method to get more traffic is with one way links. You may have heard of reciprocal links in the past, but that requires you to host a link on your site as well. With one way links there is a link to your site, but you don't have to host a link as....

 How To Boost Your Home Business Income With Free Targeted Traffic
In order to boost your home business income you need to attract visitors who are looking for exactly what your website offers, rather like attracting bees to a honey pot. Have you ever purchased website traffic and waited in anticipation for a surge of sales or sign-ups the minute that traffic starts to reach your website, only to experience disappointment when you find that you had little or no change in sign-ups, sales....

 Why submit your site to directories
When I first started building Singaporedirectory1, I was asked quite a number of times by friends and relatives: “Isn't it easier to just type something into Yahoo and Google?” Well, I myself hardly spend much time on directories searching for information. So, Isn't it really a waste of time to build directories? Unlike in the past, directories today serve a different purpose. They are hardly meant for information searching. Instead, directories serve as validation sites for search engines today. Websites included in reputable directories are often ranked higher in....

 Google Adwords Experiment: What Spelling Of
Ebooks also are hot property with many people making sizeable incomes from selling them, often using Google Adwords as a primary source of traffic. So a critical question right now is what are the smart marketers doing to boost their Adwords ads for ebooks so dominating their market *without* spending a fortune? With Google Adwords being one of the most popular forms of pay per click advertising due to the fact that it offers rapid setup (traffic within minutes), easy control and top quality traffic it's natural that there is a huge amount of interest in the subject. As the....

 Article Submitter
Dear Fellow Internet Marketers/Business Owners, Now You Can Drive Insane Traffic To Your Web Site Using The Magic of Article Submission... ...and it all happens practically on autopilot! I was totally amazed when... ... I finally stopped to add up all of the money I had been spending on advertising my web site. Fifty dollars here, a hundred there; pretty soon it had become a substantial amount of money and I wasn't seeing much in return. On top of all that, I was pouring more than I care to even think about into Google and Yahoo ads.. That's why I....

 The Importance of Submitting to Web Directories
Each and every day the Internet is growing and this includes the number of web directories out there. And although there are an unbelievable amount of web directories out there knowing which ones to choose to submit to will really help your website and its ranking with the search engines You might be wondering what the point is to even list your website with web directories when all you are concerned about is....

 10 Ways To Boost Your E-zine Subscribers
1. Show your potential subscribers a sample issue of your e-zine. Black out some of the important info; this will make them more curious & subscribe. 2. Give away a free follow-up autoresponder course. Publish your e-zine ad in each lesson. The more people see it, the higher the chance they'll subscribe. 3. Offer your potential customers a discount on a particular product you sell if they subscribe to your free e-zine. 4. Give other businesses permission to give a free subscription to your e-zine as a bonus for a product they sell. 5. Ask your potential subscribers questions that'll persuade them to subscribe like: "Would you like to be able to retire before....

 How to use Articles to Boost Your Online Presence
Writing articles is one of the best ways to get free targeted traffic to your website and isn't as hard as you may think! You don't need to be an expert on the topic you are writing about. Just pick an area that is related to the theme of your website, do some research using a search engine and before you know it you will have more knowledge on that subject than most. Here are a few tips for writing your article:  Think up a catchy headline to attract readers.....

 Learn How To Get Your Articles In the Directories Without Being A Spammer
Submitting articles to Article directories on the internet is an effective way to get more traffic to your websites. There are a few problems with this system that I will point out so that you can become more proficient in this strategy. The weakness of the article submitting techniques is that it is very time consuming. I have submitted articles in three different ways: by Hand, and with Article Submitter and Article Submitter Pro software. Many directories require a login (ID and password) so each directory must be visited and a login established before submissions are accepted. When submitting by hand,....

 One Way Links are better than Reciprocal Links
You probably know by now that where your website ranks in the search engine rankings dramatically affects how many visitors you have to your site. Did you also know that you can change where your site is ranked by being proactive and getting as many one way links to your site as possible? That is right, the more one way links you have on the Web that point back to your website the higher your site will be ranked. You are probably thinking this is amazing information and just what you need to get your site higher in the search....

 The 7 Secret To ImproveYour Link Popularity
There are many aspects to search engine optimization that are not immediately visible. Among these factors are inbound links to your website. The number of inbound links, or links displayed in other websites that point to our homepage, is called link popularity. The more links that point to your pages, the higher your website's link popularity is. The higher your website's link popularity, the better it would place in search engine results. It is important to note before we proceed however, that only incoming links should be considered. Reciprocal linking would be heavily penalized by the search engines. You'll just end....

 Whip Drive FREE Targeted Traffic Directly To Your Website Now!
Most webmasters know that writing and submitting articles is one of the crucial tactics that must be used to drive targeted traffic to their websites. Done properly, this technique alone will have hoards of hungry visitors clambering over each other to get to your website with the result that your earnings are skyrocketed into hyperspace and crowds of admirers come begging for the secrets of your success. Or will it? Ok, maybe that's....

 Ten Ways To Get Free Web Site Traffic
How many ways can you get free web site traffic? Who knows, but here are some to get you started. Hopefully there will be one or two ways here that you haven't yet tried. 1. Submit your web site to search engines. Don't wait for them to find you. You can automatically submit to 20 at freewebsubmission.com. You'll have to submit manually to Google (www.google.com/addurl.html). 2. Directories. Do a search for niche directories for the topic of your website. Just type in "directory + online games," or whatever your site....

 Professional Link Building Strategies – Acquiring Links
Link building is one of the most crucial parts of any search engine optimisation campaign. According to the new search engine algorithms, it is not the matter of only backward links but you need to have good quality and relevant backward links. Backward links can increase your PR and rankings in SERP (Search Engine Result Pages). Two essential types of links are: Reciprocated Links One Way Links Reciprocated links are two ways links. Meaning you are directly exchanging links with other websites. In new search engine algorithms reciprocal links do not hold much weight age, because it is linking a voting system,....

 Social Marketing vs Search Engine Marketing
The difference between social marketing and search engine marketing. Find out which one is best suited for you. So you have a website but do you get enough traffic? The number of page views your website gets determines its success. What's a website worth anyway if only gets a few page views.There are several ways of increasing the traffic to your website. We'll discuss only social marketing, which is getting popular, and search engine marketing.Social MarketingA lot of people are joining social communities and social bookmarkings these days. These sites allow you to interact....

Trackback URL for this post:
http://www.problogtips.com/how-to-use-web-directories-to-boost-traffic-to-your-site/336/trackback/

Posted by Jaron in the catagory of... General Interest