Increase Website Traffic With Directory Submissions?

Basically the only method the Google webmaster guidelines allow for actively going out and acquiring links is submitting your website or blog to online directories. Unfortunately submitting your website to directories won't do much to increase your website traffic in the short term but it will however greatly increase your search engine rankings due to the high quality one-way links you'll be getting from high PR directories by following the instructions I lay out here.

There are literally thousands of online directories sprinkled all over the internet today. Unfortunately most of them are worthless and a good lot of them just want to collect your email address so they can spam you to death.

There are also people all over the internet that will submit your website or blog to 10,000 directories for $50. Obviously that's an exaggeration but you get the point... you get what you pay for and these people will submit your website to a good number of worthless directories and possibly some link farms which could potentially do more harm then good for your website search engine rankings.

What you want to do is look for online directories that have a Google page rank of four or higher. To find these online directories do a search in Google. There are plenty o websites with extensive lists of online directories. Search them out and then start to whittle them down in order by page rank. There are a few free online directories that I can think of that have page ranks of 6,7 and 8 and getting a link from these directories will give your websites a huge boost in the rankings. The trouble is getting links from these directories since they're usually back-logged and the only websites they link to are high quality websites.

When it comes to links from online directories there are basically 3 types:

1. Free - these are free and cost you absolutely nothing.
2. Reciprocal - You'll have to link back to the directory from your website to get a link from them but other then that is it free.
3. Paid - You have to pay the online directory for a link - be weary of these because Google has been discounting links from websites that accept compensation in return for links.

Well there you have it... directory submissions are good for your website because they provide much needed links but unfortunately they don't do much to increase website traffic in the short term.