Some Effective Ways to Promote Directory Websites

For those who were wondering how to promote web directories, here are some tips. First of all, you should know that there is tough competition on the internet for web directory business. So, the first thing to do would be to find a way of making your directory unique, and offer something that is not there in the numerous other web-directories.

Give Free Submission Options

One good idea is to give away free submission features for the users. You can also ensure that your directory has features to allow fast and easy editing of content so that the directory grows up quickly into a massive one. The reason is that there is no one out there who would pay money to list their websites in an empty directory. So, you should first find ways of growing the size of the directory -- as already said -- it grows faster when it is open for free submission. Maybe you can keep it as a free directory till it grows to be a big one. Once your directory is popular enough, you can think about asking for a small fee for the submissions.

Use RSS Feeds

Another effective way for promoting your directory is to get quality incoming links through RSS feeds. You can form RSS feeds for stuffs such as website of the day, newly included websites, most popular websites, et cetera, and submit the RSS feeds to popular RSS directories.

 

Clean and Customize your Directory - Find ways of sprucing up the directory website. A clean and neat directory promotes itself. You can do this by going for a custom design and by adding useful and unique content. Your directory should be designed in such a way that the visitors can quickly get to what they came for. 

Use Incoming Links - You can get incoming links to your directory website from your other websites and directories, which are related to your directory niche. 

 

Make use of Forums - You can include your web directory as a signature for your profile on SEO forums. In this way, you can promote your web directory every time you do a forum post. 

 

Promote with Directory Submission - You can submit your directory website to other popular directories. 

 

Link Exchange - Negotiate with other top directory websites and exchange your web directory links with them. 

 

Promote with Freebies - In exchange for an incoming link in the user signature, you can offer free downloads. This free stuff can be anything from web templates to free web services such as SEO and site maintenance tools. You can also promote the web directory with free eBook downloads. 

Use Social Bookmarking Websites - Use social bookmarking sites like Twitter, digg.com, Yahoo! Buzz, tweetmeme.com, StumbleUpon.com, reddit.com, Technorati.com, del.icio.us, kaboodle.com, mixx.com, and Slashdot.org to mark new features and significant announcements on your directory.

You can add your directory as a signature in your profile on SEO and webmaster forums. So every time you post on the forum, you are actually promoting your directory in an indirect way.

Your directory is a lot similar to a usual website. Most of the promotion techniques that you use for promoting an ordinary website can also be used for your directory. Thus, you can begin your directory promotion by submitting it to other popular web directories. And then you can use link exchange, social bookmarking sites, and all the options that you would use for typical website promotion.