Submitting your websites to directories can be a huge source of valuable inbound links. In many cases, this is all you need to do in order for your website to be given a Google PageRank 4. The problem, however, is that the work is very monotonous.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t submit to more than 5 direcotries at one sitting; doing so is too repetitive and I start to get very sick of it very quickly. Lets take a look at what it takes to submit a website to one directory…

Wasting Your Time Submitting To One Directory

First, you will need to find a directory to submit to. If you haven’t been taking notes of which directories you have and haven’t already submitted to, this can be a nightmare. Assuming you have been taking notes, and have a nice directory status spreadsheet, all you need to do is pick the next directory on the list.

Now is when all the fun begins. You need to find out how to submit to this particular directory, possibly register a new account and confirm your email address, scan a huge list of categories and decide where your site fits, fill out your site details, and submit the form.

Just registering and submitting won’t guarantee that your site will be included in the directory. In many cases there is manual review process or the directory requires that you judiciously link back to them before they will link to you. If your site does not meet their standards, or you do not comply with their linkback rules, you have just wasted part of your life where you could have been doing something much more rewarding.

Spending $10-$20 And Forgetting About It

Your time is worth money, so think about how long it would talk you to do the above process 100-200 times :shock: … not a pretty thought is it?

Instead of doing this work manually, what I usually do is just hire someone to do it for me. Directory submission is one of the easiest jobs to outsource because so many people are actively offering/promoting their services. Take a look at the following forum sections to see what I mean (use your browser to search for the text “director” to find the relevant threads):

There are many other places to find directory submission services, but looking further isn’t really necessary. Browsing through these forums, you can find people willing to submit to over 100 directories for under $10. I think your time is worth more than that :wink:

Before paying anyone for their directory submission service, make sure you keep these tips in mind:

  1. Only buy manual submissions. Automated submissions to 200k+ directories and search engines are not worth it.
  2. Use a temporary email address to associate with your submissions. Many of the smaller directories will spam you :-(
  3. Check the feedback that has been given in the provider’s thread. Only hire those with positive comments.
  4. Ask to see the list of directories that your site will be manually submitted to. Review it for quality.
  5. Make sure you will be receiving a detailed submission report once the work is done so that you can verify and check on your submissions.

Now of course you are still going to run into the problem of your site not being included in some directories because you didn’t like back to them or they didn’t approve your site. However, when your only cost is $0.10 per directory, does it really matter? You will end up getting accepted into enough directories to make it worth the investment.

Getting A Positive ROI And Then Some

Making your costs back from this type of service is so easy that you would have to try not to. Lets say you spent $15 for 200 manual directory submissions and then forgot about your website. Four months later you hear about the latest PageRank update and decide to see if Google was good to your sites.

Upon re-discovering this forgotten site, you find that it didn’t do so well and is only a PR2. Well, you can still make your $15 back if you want to. Just post on some webmaster forums (in the advertising sections) and offer your PR2, site wide links for $3/month each. Or, you can offer permanent, single page links for $5 each. :cool:

You should easily be able to recoup that initial investment and can continue to sell more links in the future for a profit. I know these dollar amounts are very small, but I just wanted to illustrate how you can easily make your money back.

Increasing The Volume

The real benefit of outsourcing this work can be seen when you are starting multiple sites within a short time frame. It is absolutely impossible to manually submit them to 400, 200, or even 100 directories each.

I mentioned in my recent niche blog promotion goals that I would be submitting to directories manually, but that didn’t last long. I simply paid someone else $15 to do it all for me. This is what I usually do, but I thought I would try doing everything on my own for that case study… then realized it wasn’t worth the effort.

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