So I'm a newbie and I've been getting advice from the people on DP which is greatly appreciated. People keep saying submit your site to 'Directories' but this seems to be a bit confusing... * Do you only submit your site to a directory only once or all the time? I've read differing opinions on here...(can you get 'banned' from a directory?) * Is there a list of 'good directories' (yahoo?) I should submit my site too? Half of the links for directories on these posts are for directories that no longer exist. * I guess my main question is is there a Directories for Dummies or a blog/site I can learn the basics of submitting to Directories?
You can submit to as many directories as you want but only submit one time to each or you could get banned. Here is a directory list you can check out. And as far as the directory information. There are alot of posts pertaining to directories in articles within the directory in my sig and also the blog on that directory. Happy reading!
The list swedal gave you includes the top directories around. You are not going to finding many other high quality directories that are not on that list. There are some, but not many. As sewdal noted you only submit your site once to a directory. Especially in the list posted above, make sure you read and follow their submission guidelines. Take care of any potential problems before submitting, if any. Before submitting to directories, make sure you have done your keyword research. Theres nothing like targeting keywords that get no traffic, and still to this day I see some people doing that. When you submit to directories, the title of your submission is the text thats linked (aka anchor text). Make sure you include your important keyword(s) in the title without making it look "spammy." Write useful descriptions that also include your important keywords. Longer descriptions are better, but many directories limit the number of characters to 500 or even less. If you submit to the list swedal gave you, make sure each submission is unique. If you submit too many title/descriptions sets that are identical, there is always the possibility for duplicate content. In addition to the top directory list, you may also want to submit to jitendraags free directory list. I also have a free directory list in my signature, that is updated often, which you may use. As noted previously, randomize your submission sets. It's best if you do this every 20 submissions, but there are people that do it every 100 or 200. Happy link building!
Most of the directories don't accept duplicate links, and you can't submit as many times as you can to these kind of directories since you will get errors while submitting. If a directory accepts duplicate links, then you can submit your link to any related categories.
Follow Snowbird's advice and it will help your site. Here's another list of web directories that let you add your site for free.