WEB DIRECTORIES AND THEIR USES
It is not just a guess, it’s actually official: web directories are very popular nowadays. Directories off all shapes and sizes can be found on the vast playground that we like to call the Internet. However, most of you are probably unfamiliar with the uses of such a directory.
For the regular Internet surfer, a web directory is nothing more than a collection of links. A surfer’s use of a directory is limited to searching sites that belong to certain categories and surfing through them. Or somewhere in that area, anyway. However, if you are a webmaster and you don’t know what the uses of directories are, then you are in luck, because you are about to find out pieces of information that will help your site’s success.
First of all, when can you safely say that a site really exists on the Internet? When it gets traffic, of course. And by traffic I mean real, serious, even targeted traffic that has interest in your website. Either you built your site for Internet marketing purposes or you just built it for fun, you did it because you want to share it with people. If not, then you are right: you can skip this article?
Anyway, let’s get back to the regular webmaster. I promised you some revelations earlier. Well, they are not that much of a secret, but trust me: they are efficient. So let’s go through the most important uses of directories.
First of all, it’s obvious: you get extra traffic. Web directories’ visitors may be with a purpose or by sheer accident on that particular site, but odds are that you will get traffic from these directories. The amount of that depends on the number of directories you submit your site to and, of course, their quality.
Second of all, you get backlinks. If you don’t already know that, the use of backlinks is immense: they basically help your site increase in the eyes of the search engines so you get higher in the listings for the particular search terms from your site’s area. Again, this equals in more and more traffic to your site.
The backlinks’ quality also depends on each directory’s page rank and overall quality. Again, more is better so starting a site submitting campaign to these directories could be a very wise choice indeed.
Some web directories are free, some are not. The most important free directory is DMOZ or the Open directory Project. It has a high value, but months can pass before you get listed, as each submission is analyzed by volunteers who work for the company.
Depending on whether your site is built for business or not, you can decide to pay for some directories if they return a high value. I’m not saying that you definitely should, I’m saying that you could think at it as a possibility. Paid directories submit your site in a matter of hours and you can reap the rewards right away. This is especially very wise to do when your site is at the beginning, and the search directories don’t know of its existence yet. By submitting a link to a directory that will post it right away, your site will be cached by the major search engines like Google, Yahoo and Msn in no time at all.
There are literally thousands of directories available out there, in all fields of activity, but don’t let the numbers fool you. There are special tools, pieces of software that will help you submit your site automatically rather than manually. They have very thorough lists of sites and will help you submit your site to the best web directories available on the Internet.
