9 Signs of a Good Directory Submission Service

There are thousands of free directories on the internet. Directory submission can be a very time-consuming process, and understandably a lot of website owners would rather pay someone else to do this job. So specialist services have emerged to help people to submit their website to directories. The idea is that by leaving directory promotion to the experts it frees you up to do more productive things with your time.

However, these services are of variable quality, and cheap is not always cheerful. If you pay for hundreds of submissions that result in no inbound links, you might as well just burn your cash. If you're considering using one of these services, how can you tell whether your money will be well spent? Here are nine things you can look out for.

1. How large a list do they offer?

   Although there are thousands of free directories, only some of them are any good. They need to be reasonably well promoted, edited with some care, and likely to help you gain visitors to give you any chance of a ROI.
   
   One of the best sources of free English-language directories is the Info Vilesilencer list. Be cautious if anyone offers to submit your website to a list that's substantially larger than that. Directories change constantly. There is no point in paying someone to submit to directories which have turned paid, closed down, or been abandoned. It's useless to submit to niche and foreign-language directories which are irrelevant to your website and will never list it. It's very rare to find a list of several thousand directories that's in any way well-maintained or relevant.
   
   

2. Do they offer to help you write your titles and descriptions?

   You may know your website better than anyone else and are probably best-placed to describe what it does. But not everyone knows how to write an acceptable submission.
   
   Most directories want an objective description of each website which conforms to their guidelines. They don't want an advertisement.
   
   A good submission service should be able to point out at least 5 problems with this imaginary submission for Widgets Inc.*
   
   Title: Widgets, Branded Widgets, Black Widgets, Green Widgets, Cool Widgets,
   
   Description: We Provide The Best Source For Widgets, Blue Widgets, Red Widgets, Green Widgets and Branded Widgets. Free Delivery This Month. Our Prices Start At Just £1. Great Value!
   
   
   
   

3. How many variations of your website description and title will be produced?

   A submission service that only asks for one has no understanding of the way search engines deal with duplicate content. Search engines look for pages with substantially similar text on them, and they try to ignore more than one instance of the same page, or pages that are very alike. You wil need several variations, often including at least one that goes into a lot more detail to cater for the small number of directories which ask for lengthy descriptions.
   
   

4. Are you ever told that your website isn't suitable?

   Some types of website simply aren't good candidates for a directory campaign. Adult and gambling-related websites tend to have far fewer places available to submit to, and a hastily thrown-up collection of affiliate links with no original content will also fare badly. As a general rule, the less time it took to build the website, the worse it will tend to do with directories.
   
   

5. Is the submission manual or automatic?

   Many useful directories employ captchas and other methods to ensure that a real person rather than a robot visits the submission page. This is because directory editors want submitters to read and obey their guidelines, which of course they can't do if they don't visit. Automatic software is too inflexible to follow instructions, even if it's sometimes capable of breaking standard captchas. Therefore submissions made with software have a much lower rate of acceptance, and should be avoided.
   
   

6. Whose email will you be using?

   Most directories ask for an email address. A good submission company will ask you to set one up from your own domain, rather than using a free webmail address or one of their own. This is because a percentage of directories are set up to reject submissions coming from email addresses which don't match the domain being submitted.
   
   Before launching a submissions campaign you should set up an email address dedicated to this task. Do not use your primary email address. This is because you'll get a lot of mail simply confirming your submission, as well as acceptance and rejection emails, and it can clog up your inbox.
   
   

7. Does the service provide a detailed report?

   It's useful to know where the submissions were made and when, and what the success rate was. Were any of the directories down or broken, and were attempts made to submit later on? Spreadsheets and graphs are all signs of a good quality service. They can also provide you with some evidence that the work has actually been done, because not all directories will send confirmations or rejections, but at least with a report you know where to look.
   
   

8. Is the work done by people who speak your language as a native tongue?

   If the people submitting your website don't have a good enough understanding then they'll have trouble reading the instructions for each directory, and that leads to a lower acceptance rate.
   
   

9. Does the service target niche and regional directories correctly?

   Submitting a German website to a directory that only accepts those in the Spanish language is a waste of time, and a that's a waste of your money. Services that persistently submit inappropriately are likely to be blacklisted, so that nothing they submit will be listed in certain directories. Ask the submission service which niche and regional directories they will be targeting for you. If the answer is "all of them", it's time to find another provider.
   
   

* 1. The title is stuffed with keywords.
2. Capitalisation is used on every word.
3. Most directories dislike the use of "we" in a description, because it's not always clear to the visitor who it refers to.
4. "The Best Source" and "Great Value!" are promotional rather than objective descriptions.
5. The description includes prices and time-sensitive offers. Directories do not usually get updated every time prices change.