For those of you who hate to write, you’re going to love today’s web traffic tip. Today we’re going to learn about submitting our sites to niche directories. This web traffic tip will help you in a couple ways.
1. Get some good quality links back to your site to help improve your search engine ranking.
2. Some direct traffic.
What is a niche directory?
A niche directory is a site that contains links to a bunch of different sites all related to the same niche or topic. You can find niche directories on just about any topic or niche. If you can’t find something specific to your niche you can go a little broader for inclusion. Say you have a site about ride on toys. You may not find a niche directory for ride on toys, but you may find one for toys, or kids, or parenting, or gifts, or moms. Those would probably all be relevant to your site.
How does a niche directory help me?
At the niche directory you will find a link that says “add my site” or something similar. This will allow you to provide them a link and some information about YOUR site to include in their directory. This helps you by giving you a link back to your site that not only people searching in the directory will find, but Google will find as well.
Many of these niche directories have decent page rank, which makes them a good link. However, even if the directory doesn’t have a great page rank, it’s still worth the link because it will be quite relevant.
How do I find these niche directories?
You’re in luck. There are entire sites listing different niche directories. Here are just a few:
Web Directories This site provides quite a few categories of niches. You will find quality listings of niche directories here.
Directory Critic: Plenty of great niches with directories.
While niche specific directories are great if your site is on a blog platform (blogger, wordpress .org/.com) you can also submit it to any/many blog directories. You can also Google your niche + directory to come up with more options.
Here are three that are must submits:
BlogCatalog: This is much more than just a blog directory, it’s an entire community. I get a bit of traffic from blogcatalog. You can acquire friends, and people can do blog reviews of your site. It’s an active community. Make sure you tag your entry with keywords so people can find it who are looking for information or to connect with people who are talking about what you’re talking about.
Spending a few minutes looking around for people in your niche is a good idea. You can add them as friends, or do a review of their blog, or just leave them a comment. Building those relationships is smart because it could lead to communication channels you can use later. 
Another cool thing about this site is a lot of people have the blogcatalog widget on their sidebar. If you stay logged into blogcatalog when you hit one of those blogs your picture will pop up in the widget giving you even more exposure. Not the BEST way to get traffic, but you don’t have to do anything so it’s a plus.
MyBlogLog: This site is very similar to blogcatalog. I personally haven’t had as much success with this site ~ but it’s still worth adding your site for the link. You can also add some friends in your niche ~ who knows, your niche might work better here.
Technorati: This is the like the end all be all directory of blogs. It’s a wise wise move to add your blog to technorati. It can be a little confusing adding your blog, but it’s worth it. You’ll have to create an account if you don’t have one. Then find the place to “add a blog”. You’ll have to veryify your blog, which includes adding a piece of code to your site (which you can later remove). They will give you pretty clear directions on how to do this. If you have questions feel free to ask in the comments section.
Those are three of the biggest “community” type of directories I highly recommend you take some time to add your site to all three. Here’s a post I found that will lead you to some other excellent blog directories.
What if I’m not doing a blog?
If you’re working on building lenses at Squidoo don’t fret. There’s directories for you too!!
Here’s some of the best lens directories (remember most of these are human edited so it may take a little time to get your lens accepted, and you can’t submit junk ~ not that you would be making junk ~ I’m just saying.)
SquidUtils Directory You’ll need to create an account at Squidutils to add your lenses ~ but squidutils has awesome tools for squidoo so it’s worth it!
Lensroll.com You’ll need to join to submit your lenses, but you can submit as many lenses as you want. This site you can also vote lenses up or down ~ the lenses with more votes show up higher on the page ~ so….
Squidom.com The Kingdom of Squidoo. Another directory you can submit your lenses to. This site also offers a bookmarklet you can drag and drop into your browser. When you’re on your lens you can just click the bookmarklet to submit the lens ~ very nice.
Isle of Squid One of the original squidoo directories. It’s been around for quite a while.
Squidoo Ink Pot This is a blog as well as a directory. Look for the “add a lens” tab in the navigation bar at the top.
That should at least get you started. There are squidoo directories popping up all the time ~ keep your eyes open, and google it once in a while to keep up to date on the new directories.
How am I ever going to do all this?
There are literally thousands of directories you can add your blog to. It can be completely overwhelming, I get it. I would suggest you find a good list of directories and just start. Don’t think you have to get it all done today. It will benefit you to do a few links a day. Make it part of your daily schedule to add your site to 3 to 5 directories each day.
If you’ve set a daily “link” goal for yourself, these will count toward that number as well. If you add your site to 5 directories on weekdays only you will have 1300 links to your site by the end of one year. That’s definitely worth a few minutes a day.
If you have questions feel free to ask them in the comment section and I’ll do my best to answer them. I had truly forgotten about this strategy ~ I’m going to add it to my list of daily activities as well.
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Great post.
Do putting a reciprocal link give any benifit in terms of link juice? I often see options for reciprocal but it doesn’t mention that they are different from free links other than the fact you need to put a reciprocal link in return.
Steve@Baby Stroller Reviews´s last [type] ..Baby Stroller Storage Your Thoughts
actually ~ reciprocal links aren’t that great… you want one way links, not so much reciprocal.
yes, you have to do that so they can make sure you are the owner of the blog. It only takes a second after you hit the confirm (or similar) button. Then you can take the link out.
Jackie
mp they don’t require a reciprocal and I hadn’t heard anything about mybloglog closing.
So much better then regular all-inclusive directories. Links much appreciated, thank you.
FYI – I haven’t heard much lately, but bi talk around about mybloglog closing down…apparently it’[s money suck and they can’t figure out what to do with it.
I wouldn’t bother with the upgrade. Just do some socializing with others in your niche. While 3 dollars is not much there are a million places online you can “upgrade” for 3 dollars a month. They usually don’t add that much value and add up quickly. Glad it’s working out for you.
Thanks! I’ll pass as you are right, $3 isn’t much but it is if you do that for every damn thing you join!
when you go back to mybloglog it should tell you it’s seen your site. If you get that message you’re good to go.
You’re quite welcome. If you really want to make a donation you’re welcome to
I’ve added a donate button in the footer. 
I have not received the message. But, it seems as if it is linked. I was able to see my blog stats through there service. Is it worth it to upgrade to the pro version for $3 a month? It is such a measily amount it seems like a no brainer. But, what exactly are the advantages?
I am starting to think I should be e-mailing you… but other readers could be learning a lot with our small discussion…
In just a few hours I have 5 contacts by doing NOTHING! Time to donate to Jackie
P.S. How did you get that follow me on twitter birdie? I found a really cool social media widget thing but its nice to have bigger things that stand out for things such as twitter and youtube.
***Do you have a donate button? I owe you, really.
go to editor and then choose footer. You should be able to see the tags you’re looking for in the footer area.
Bam… talk about a quick reply! I just added it… I think I did it right – how do I know for sure?
Awesome post Jackie! This has been on my list to do, but thanks to you discussing it I am in the midst of doing it! I just submitted my blog to blog catalog and am trying to submit it to mybloglog but I ran into a problem. Small one…
Where exactly do I add the link tracking script? I click on “editor” under appearance in wordpress and there is a list of about 15 templates. It tells me to add it between the OPEN body () tag and the CLOSE body () tag but I am not finding it anywhere… any ideas?
Thanks! I owe you and will soon! (I need to make money first – but oh, am I close!!!!)
-Todd
Thank you Jackie!
Thank you!! I thought so but wasn’t sure. Thank you again!!
Cathy
Hi Cathy,
Great question and I meant to address it earlier. I would avoid the directories that ask for a reciprocal link. That means you have to link to the directory from your site ~ you don’t want those links going off your site. So stick with the directories that will allow you to submit your site without the reciprocal link.
Does blogcatalog still require a reciprocal? They did in the beginning.
I am also wondering about that. It asks you to ‘Verify your ownership’ by putting a link in your blogroll. Is this an essential step?
Suzi
.-= Suzi´s last blog ..Do you consider yourself lucky? =-.
Hi Jackie,
Thank you for the information. I have used web directories before but I need to spend more time there submitting. Can you explain reciprocal linking that many ask for when you are posting your link? I just don’t seem to be understanding or doing it correctly.
Thanks again,
Cathy
I haven’t done much at technorati ~ but a little time spent in any community is usually worth it.
Hey Jackie -
Great info! I just got an email that my blog was approved at Technorati. Is that all you recommend doing there or should I participate in the community in some way?
You can learn more about Zemanta and what it’s doing for me here.
The twitter plugin is twitterlink comments.
Hey Jackie thanks for another great article for traffic generation! Funnily enough I was just saying to my friend yesterday that we should submit our blogs to the web directories! I’m going to send her the link to this article now
I noticed you’re using zemanta with that little ‘reblog’ icon under your article… is that sending you much traffic? How does it work? I’ve heard of them but haven’t really had time to check it out yet.
What’s the twitter plugin you use below the comments box btw?
Thanks,
Donna
Hi Meryl,
I just tried it and got the same url message. So apparently it’s having issues.
Squid Inkpot doesn’t seem to be working. I tried repeatedly to submit a lens but it either told me the lens url was incorrect (and I just cut and paste it to make sure I wasn’t making a mistake) or it told me the captcha code was incorrect – which it wasn’t. have you used this successfully?
One thing to remember about AC is that they can (and often do) remove any article that has
# Inclusion of affiliate links
# Overtly promotional content or links
AC is where I started on the internet – I didn’t know anything about marketing, and planned on making a living writing articles. Then I found Squidoo.
Very true Kelly. I have had them deny articles that had no links in them for being overly promotional. It was an article about blog carnivals. It’s wasn’t promoting anything lol. So yeah, you have to be really information based with your articles, and include one link in the other resources area.
Jackie,
I am doing my product sites on blogger instead of squidoo. I find it’s simpler. Since it’s just one page can they be put under those directories you mentioned above and the $5.00 packets?
You can definitely use the backlink packets for them ~ you’ll have to try the directories and see what happens.
Hi Jackie!
Thanks for including the links for the Squidoo lenses because as you can probably see, I’m still doing Squidoo.
Also thanks Rachel for reminding me about Associated Content… I had heard about them awhile back and had totally forgotten all about them, so I’m going to go check it out!
Thanks!
Cindy
Thanks, Jackie. I had read how others used Technorati, but I never understood what it was. I will check out the other sites you mentioned too.
I have another question…..I know we are looking at ways not to write so much, but I wondered about AssociatedContent.com. Have you used that site? It looks like you can get paid for submitting original articles and I wondered if I would be able to submit an orginal article, get paid, and get a backlink back to my site?
Rachael
Hey Rachel,
Yeah AC is a great place to do that. Just choose your keywords accordingly. You get paid by the “views” your article gets.
yeah I was able to do that with the one I referred to above. What I was getting at with my question is that you talk about “must dos” for a blog, do you have any for a static website?
I am using SBI and they now have a content 2.0 section that basically allows the site to mimic a blog, if you will, so it is very powerful, BUT of course as it is not a blog, you can’t do blogcatalog and blog plugins and such..
Unfortunately I’ve never had a static website so I’ve never spent any time finding resources for them.
So no I don’t have any “must dos” for a static site.
Great post Jackie, I already went to the web directories, quickly added my site to one of them and it only took a min or so. So yes, a few mins a day until they are all exhausted is a great idea.
Question: you talk about having a blog or squidoo lens and you add some extra tips there, what if I have a website?
You’ll have to check the directories and see if you can add an html site. I’m sure you probably can.
Excellent! I’m one who isn’t into writing so this is a dream come true for me. Between this and Angela’s links I’m set! Thanks Jackie!