SEO experts and internet marketing professionals understand the impact of inbound links on search engine ranking. The more one-way links you have from relevant, authoritative websites, the higher your search engine ranking will be. Search engines essentially regard every link pointing to your website as a “vote” for your site, and gives greater weight to those websites with greater longevity, more relevance, and greater authority within your market niche. Your search engine ranking will also benefit from inbound links from sites that have a higher search engine ranking than yours.

The next question is how to get high-ranking, relevant, and highly-respected website to link to you. Internet marketing professionals believe that one great way to get inbound links is to submit your site to web directories.

Directories are listings of websites organized by category and subcategory. Internet users looking for information about a certain subject often use directories to access lists of websites that can give them the information that they're looking for. Likewise, website owners who want to get noticed often submit their sites to directories. Sounds like a breeze, right? But before you start submitting to every directory you can find, make sure that those directories are relevant to your market niche and that you submit your site to the appropriate categories and subcategories. Finding the appropriate directories and the right categories can be a time-consuming process, but you can be assured that your time and effort will pay off in the end. Once your website shows up in the directory, you will notice increased traffic. Relevant sites will begin linking to you and, in the end, you will find that your search engine ranking has increased.

One of the most important things to remember is that, unlike search engines, directories are managed by humans. They check every submission to make sure that it is appropriate for their directory and that the categories you have chosen are relevant. This means that you need to be painstaking in your choice of directories and in filling out the information required by each directory. Here are 3 ways to make sure that your directory submission is accepted.

1. Relevance. The most important thing to consider when you submit your site to a directory is relevance. Directory owners will discount random submissions immediately. Also, be thoughtful when choosing the categories to which you want to submit. Manual editors see thousands of submissions per day, and it's much easier to reject a submission than to accept it.

2. Organize Your Information. Each directory has its own expectations for submissions, so make sure you are aware of them before you actually add your URL. Most directories want descriptions ranging from 100-250 characters, so be sure you can make your point in a clear, concise manner. Make sure your keywords are focused and organized. Wordiness is not rewarded by directory editors, and may cause them to reject your submission outright. To help you get your keywords together, start by making a short list of keywords that you think are appropriate. Then shorten your list even more to include only the most relevant keywords.

3. Never Spam. Remember that your submission is being reviewed by a human editor and that human editors can recognize spam right away. Use every word carefully and thoughtfully. Not only can spamming get your submission rejected, it can also ensure that directory editors won't even give you a second chance.

Directory submission is a great way to build one-way links, but it is also very tedious and time-consuming. One possibility is to consider to hiring an SEO expert to both complete the submission task on your behalf and to help you determine how to integrate directory submission into your overall internet marketing strategy. Either way, make directory submission work for you!