So you have launched a blog and you are starting to write in it everyday and a few months go by and you start to ask yourself what else can I do to further my blogs reach. One thing you have to realize is that your blog is like any other website and it requires an additional shove to get it moving. A blog requires various marketing efforts to further it’s reach and really become visible. It is important to take advantage of all platforms at your disposal.

Submitting your blog to various online blog directories is a good start to get things moving. Below are a few directories to get you started.

Blog Catalog is great website to get things started for your blog. One of the industry leading blog directories you can include links to your blog, a description and also social interaction.

Blogarama is also a very high powered blog directory that is a must for your blog to be in. With over 100,000 blogs already listed and still growing this directory will be great for your blog.

Bloggapedia has also become a great place for your blog to be visible on. With the ability to set up a profile and interact directly with web traffic the social aspect will be great to help grow your new blog.

Best of Web Blogs Directory is a new website as part of the BOTW franchise of directories and should be considered when you start to perform link building for your blog.

There are a lot website owners, and even more bloggers, who seem to be getting the jitters over Google’s apparent change of heart over blog directories, or directories in general. Google used to recommend directories such as DMOZ and Yahoo! - not any more.

However, why are bloggers and the like getting the jitters. Okay, so Google removed any reference to blog directories altogether. They have not however, said that there is anything wrong with directories.

From Google’s point of view they may be fine about links from directories; it just suits their current situation that making a recommendation is not quite right. Never fear, Google can speak, at least through a forum:

[Google's John Mueller]I wouldn’t necessarily assume that we’re devaluing Yahoo’s links, I just think it’s not one of the things we really need to recommend. If people think that a directory is going to bring them lots of visitors, then it’s obviously fine to get listed there. It’s not something that people have to do though.

Google have, in the past, discounted any directory that requests payment (except Yahoo! and is not hand moderated. Perhaps over time blog directories will, in general terms, lose any search rank relevancy. Rumor abounds of late that Goolge is going to incorporate more into general social media. Perhaps this is just the first step down that track.

Technorati has released its annual stats in its ‘State of the Blogoshpere 2008″ report. There are quite a few interesting stats to come out of the report including the fact that 74% of all US bloggers have graduated college.

Many feel the only intelligence required to write a blog is the ability to put a few words together - and make some sense (some blogs leave that to question as well). No, bloggers do have brains. In fact, blogs themselves seem to be becoming more sophisticated. Quick Stats from the report include:

• 66% of bloggers are male
• 60% of bloggers are between 25 and 45
• 44% of bloggers earn between $20k and $75k
• 48% of bloggers live in the US
• 45% have a Technorati Authority number of 1 or more
• Half of bloggers who responded are on at least their second (or 8th!) blog
• 59% have been blogging for two years or more
• Non first-time bloggers contribute to four blogs on average, and the average blogging tenure is three years.
• Female bloggers are more likely to affiliate links (41% v 32%)

Why are these stats important? If you’re an advertiser, you can target your ad placement according to who is behind the blog as much as by who is reading the blog. Blogs that get past the two year mark tend to be stayers and bloggers that get beyond the two year mark tend to have more than one blog. You can draw many other conclusions from the data - the biggest being that blogging is alive and well and being driven by individuals with intelligence - as least, that’s what the stats say?

When it’s Blog Catalog of course - or MyBlogLog for that matter. These two appear to be in a head to head race to see who can outdo each other as alternative social media sites as well.

To the outsider it may appear they are competing for blog owner traffic. The reality is that most blog owners, if they are active on one, are also active on the other. The major difference is the level of activity on each of the sites. There is no doubt that most users prefer one over the other, that doesn’t stop them using both.

This is probably a good example of brand loyalty. No matter how many features each of these blog directories add, users are remaining loyal to their favorite. Since the beginning of this year, both sites, more notably Blog Catalog, have added a lot of different features - all aimed more at the social networking aspect than as blog directories.

These two sites are hard to categories now. They are blog directories and they pick up your blogs feeds and deliver them to your profile. They are also social networking sites with forum style discussion streams. There has been talk of live messenger style chatting. While all of this is going on, you can also have a twitter style feed of all your social media activities. What you have dugg, thumbed or promoted in any way - all shared with those that want to share.

As for generating traffic - like anything social, the more you work for the community, the more traffic you will generate.

There are thousands of blog directories around these days so when submitting your blog you need to play it smart.

If you are submitting purelyfor link value then high ranking blog directories that utilize the ‘dofollow’ are a must. If you are looking for traffic then perhaps using the lower ranked blog directories could offer better value.

With the higher ranked blog directories, you are competing against ten’s of thousands of blogs. In any one day there may be 1000 new submissions. With so much competition your chances of being seen and your link followed are greatly reduced.

The smaller blog directories have fewer blogs listed so your chances of being on the first couple of pages for your category. This increases your visibility and with it the chances of having your link followed.

There is a downside to submitting to smaller directories and that is the substantially smaller flow of traffic. However being seen by a few can be better than being hidden from the masses. If you are selctive with your choice of directories and try to find directories with specific categories related to your site then your hit rate may improve further.

Ideally, you should submit your blog to a variety of different blog directories. Some large with good rankings and some small with low rankings but the opportunity for good exposure.

Some blog owners go overboard and submit their sites to as many blog directories as possible in the shortest time possible.  Not only that, they use the same text in every submission. This result is that the main search engines look at these links coming back as unnatural and treat them accordingly.

The key to successfully submitting your site to blog directories is to take it slowly and to do it smartly. Use different text in each of the submissions and only submit to a couple of directories every couple of days. Where possible, rather than using your index file as the URL, use a URL that you want to promote and write the accompanying submission text using keywords related to that page.

Free blog directories are the best particularly since Google has started to frown on paid directory listings.  Whilst DoFollow makes for a more valuable link, a link is a link. Selecting sites with a good PageRank also helps. Below is a list of possible sites with their PageRanks.

http://www.dmoz.org/ 8
http://www.la-ma.org/ 6
http://www.mxdu.com/ 6
http://www.jayde.com/ 6
http://www.mygreencorner.com/ 6
http://www.ghinmeca.com/ 5
http://directory.classifieds1000.com/ 5
http://www.concensus.org/ 5
http://www.directorydice.com/ 5
http://www.domaining.in/ 5
http://www.freewebsitedirectory.com/ 5
http://www.illumirate.com/ 5
http://www.info-listings.com/ 5
http://www.publimix.net/ 5
http://searchsight.com/Directory.htm 5
http://www.uc33.com/ 5
http://www.amray.com/ 4
http://www.a1webdirectory.org/ 4
http://www.boshuda.com 4
http://www.businesspagesupdate.co.uk/ 4
DMOZ always gets listed first in these lists, however it can take many months before your site is actually listed. Check each site prior to listing and be sure it suits your genre and has suitable categories to match your site. Blog directories are good sources of valuable links. Don’t however rely on them solely for inbound links.

There are thousands of blog directories around and probably billions of blogs. Many bloggers look upon blog directories with disdain, this can be a big mistake as these directories can produce traffic and will generally deliver inbound links. Just don’t make any of these mistakes.

Don’t Over Submit:
Don’t try to submit to every directory you come across. Be selective and target directories that have categories to suit your niche.

Don’t Copy and Paste:
One trap that many bloggers fall into is to try and list with a lost of directories at once. They open as many directories as possible and then just copy paste the same information into each directory. You are far better off listing with directories one at time writing your title and description for that directory.

Don’t Ignore Paid Directories:
Paid directories such as Yahoo! provide decent backlinks. They are not cheap, but they are well respected and that is what you are paying for - reputation.

Don’t Believe Everything You Read:
Good or bad. Directories are not going to solve your SEO problems and get you listed number one. The good directories will generate backlinks, quality at that, but little more.

Submitting to directories can help to develop back links which are valuable to all SEO strategies. Submit to blog directories that are going to deliver that value and your site will reap the rewards. Ignore of over do it and your site will suffer.

Some blog directories are better than others when it comes to the amount of traffic they generate. There are hundreds of directories available and some of the niche directories may bring even more traffic. I have stuck to the more general directories in this listing.

Number 5: I Blog Business - This is a really good directory if your blog is a business blog or if you run a small business. There is no spam on this site due to the hand selection of listings.

Number 4: Blogoozle - Plenty of categories to choose from and a nice & easy interface. Featured blog of the day and blogs sorted by PR. If you are looking for high ranking sites, this one place to easily find them.

Number 3: Technorati - Many would place this at number one. Very popular and placing a social media button on your site helps. Reasonable traffic depending on the subject.

Number 2: BlogHub- Another popular directory that works like a social bookmarking site. Get active in the community to get extra traffic.

Number 1: blogFlux - My favorite. For some reason this directory seems to send plenty of traffic, depending on the subject matter.

Everyone has their own favorite blog directory; often it’s the first directory they joined. If you find a directory that is sending you good traffic, have a closer look and see if you can determine why. You may be able to repeat it later.

I say pain as sometimes it can be very tedious and even frustrating getting your blog listed into many of the blog directories. One of my biggest frustrations is trying to find a category that is suited to the blog I want listed - and every directory seems to have a different set of categories.

However, are they worth the effort? Most directory sites seem to have taken a little dip in the rankings of late, does that mean that Google no longer favors them or is it a temporary glitch? For some blog directories  it no longer matters,  they have incorporated no follow into the their out going links.

If you do decide to submit to one of the blog directories, determine if it does follow, if not, is it popular enough to deliver traffic - if not - don’t bother.

Blog directories that haven’t  gone the no follow route can still provide some good value. If they allow links to inner pages, so much the better. Blog directories that use the do follow and allow deeper linking are few and far between. If you can find one, use it and use it well.

Ensure you select the right category and write a good description. If submitting to more than one directory, use a unique description for each one - chances are you are using a slightly different category so write your description to marry your blog to the blog directories you are submitting to.

Whilst it may be a tedious job submitting to blog directories, the links you receive will all help to build on the rankings of your blog - use blog directories only if they do provide some real help.

There are a lot of blog directories around now and there are several services that can assist you to get blog listed on these directories. Some provide automatic submissions, some allow for semi-automatic and others manual submission. The question I pose today, should use submit your blog using an automatic blog directories submission service?

I will answer this first by providing a brief review of each type of submission.

Manual submission

Manual submission, as the name suggests, are where you submit your blog details one by one. By submitting your blog to individual blog directories, you can ensure it is submitted into the corect category using individual tags related to the site, the category and of course your blog. You are able to submit to all directories, even those with captcha type requirements.

• Upside: accurate category submission
• Downside: slow process as each submission is done one by one

Semi Automatic Submission

When you select a semi-automatic service, you generally select a category and any tags. The service submits the information to a variety of blog directories. You need to either confirm the submission by entering captcha info or by clicking on the final submit button.

• Upside: you have some control of category and it is relatively quick
• Downside: you may find your blog listed in categories that are unsuitable or in directories that spam email back - you often have limited control as to the directories you blog is submitted to

Automatic Submission

Automatic submission does the complete job. Tell it which category and which tags and the service will go and submit your blog to as many blog directories as it can.

• Upside: speed. Your blog could be submitted to a hundred or more directories in minutes.
• Downside: you have no control as to which blog directories your blog is submitted to. Many of the top directories are excluded as they use captcha or similar to prevent spamming

The choice is yours. Automatic submission is fast but with speed, you lose quality. Manual submissions enable you to select your directory of choice and fine tune the submission. Manual also enables you to submit your blog to the better quality blog directories. I prefer manual - but then, I am told I am a control freak.

There are many reasons why submitting your blog to a blog directory is a good idea. In addition to increasing your blog’s exposure, there are a myriad of other benefits; here are just a few:

1. Blog Directories are crawled by search engines  such as Yahoo!, MSN, and Google on a regular basis. Directories are structured in such a way that search engines can crawl through them quickly and index the information quickly.  Directories are generally crawled more often than individual blogs so you are more likely to get your article indexed faster through a directory than through your blog.
2. Most blog directories see a ton of traffic. Individuals like to see who else is listed in their category and what they have written. This leads can lead to an increase in visitors to your site.
3. Blog Directories generate a large number of incoming links. Many directories give you the option of providing a reciprocal link or paying a small subscription fee. As a result, the number of links generated increase the directory’s popularity and search engine ranking.
4. Some directories allow for RSS feed up-dates of your latest posts.  This can make it easy for individuals to subscribe to your blog feed.
5. Blog directories are here to stay.  Blog directories make it easier for individuals to find what their looking for.
6. Submitting to directories is easy and generally costs very little, if anything.

Directories  increase the exposure of your blog resulting in extra traffic, inbound links and better page ranking. Submitting to a blog directory is time well spent and you will grow to appreciate the benefits your  blog receives over a period of time.

There are certainly a lot of directories available for site submissions and most of them are either blog directories or they accept blogs. An article on human edited directories by Chris Crum at Small Business Newz makes for interesting reading and raises several interesting points.

To summarize the article, Chris focuses on two issues with directories;

• Human edited listings:  These directories edit every listing that is submitted ensuring they are not only quality sites, they are also relevant to the category they are submitted in.

• Automatically approved listings: These are generally accepted using an email response. There is no quality control and sites may end up being listed in categories that are totally unrelated.

Does it make any real difference? A directory is a directory and all listings provide some value don’t they? This may be true. However if your site or your blog is listed in the wrong category then you may not receive the real benefit that could have been provided by a more relevant category. Not only that, if your entry has been accepted into the wrong category, how many others have as well?

Human edited directories at least ensure that you are in the correct category and that all the other sites are also in the correct category. More importantly, human edited directories are able to filter out the spammy and parked sites that offer no real value to the community. Automated directories accept all sites. As Chris says in his article:

[source]Don’t you think search engines would value a link that is listed among other quality links higher than one that is listed with a bunch of spammy ones?

I cannot help but agree with his argument although I think other issues still need to be considered. Some directories, although claiming to be human edited, leave me wondering when you see the type of sites included and the lack of quality control when it comes to category selection. I have seen XXX rated sited listed in Family or Parenting categories - so much for human editing.

Other issues include timing. I have sites listed with DMOZ and even after six months, they have still not been approved.  Like all things related to the internet, before submitting your site to a directory check that you are in the right category. Also check out the category to see what sort of sites are listed there - make sure they are relevant.

A blog directories are blog directories and you are always going to gain some benefit from them.  Chris’ points are valid. You will get more benefit from a human edited directory than an automated one. In fact it is well worth the extra time preparing an accurate submission to a human edited directory. It is also worth the extra time waiting for approval. But man is it galling when they knock you back because they think you have selected the wrong category - and they don’t advise you on the right one.

Once you have created a blog one of the quickest ways to get backlinks and to start building traffic is to submit your blog to as many of the blog directories that you can find. At least, that is the general advice that everyone will offer. There are however several things that you will need to consider before and during the registration process.

The first question you need to ask yourself is which blog directories do you want to submit your blog to. You can do a search and build a list or you can visit any blog that has a list of blog directories. You could also get a professional service to submit your blog for you. Often, the list provided by a reliable blog is your best starting point as they will generally have some knowledge of the directories being recommended.

Before listing your blogs, grab yourself a free email address from one of the free email services. Once you register your blog details on a blog directory your details including your email address are added to their database. Not all blog directories are honorable.  There are some that will either sell their database to advertising companies, or they will use their database themselves to send constant ad related emails. With a free email address you will at least save your regular email from being spammed.

Some blog directories require a reciprocal link on your blog. That is fine particularly if it is a little banner or text link. If they do require a reciprocal link avoid putting it in the footer. It seems at present that search engines such as Google consider links in the footer to be link exchanges or purchased links. This could have a negative affect on your search engine ranking. Place the recipricol link in either your blogroll   (for a text link) or in your sidebar. Group the banners together in the sidebar for a better aesthetic look.

Finally, when submitting to blog directories, choose your categories and keywords very carefully. Some directories may reject your blog if it has been submitted to the wrong category. You also want any backlinks that do come from the directory to come from the same niche as your blog. This increases the value of that backlink.

Submitting your blog to a range of blog directories is good PR and will improve the search engine value of your blog - just be aware of some of the pitfalls associated with blog directories.

Blog directories are always trying to keep ahead of times, more importantly, trying to offer more to keep you participating on their sites. The latest offering is from BlogCatalog who have teamed up with the comment tracking and ranking service, SezWho.

BlogCatalog is one of the fastest growing blog directories on the internet. Every day over 100,000 bloggers interact through BlogCatalog making it not only a blog directory but also a powerful social networking site.

SezWho is a collaborative review and reputation service that give bloggers the opportunity to rate the comments left on their posts. Bloggers are also able to review the commenting history of the individual who has left a comment. This could become a useful tool in weeding out those that leave meaningless comments in the hope of getting link juice from their comments.

It seems to be a natural progression for these two services to come together to form quite a powerful alliance. SezWho gets to feed off the one of the largest blog directories on the net whilst BlogCatalog users get the benefit of a potentially powerful comment rating service.

On the down side, for bloggers it means another plugin is required. A further issue I have as a blogger is that SezWho is not the prettiest of widgets on the net. At present the widget is only available in a rather stark red. The other issue I have is that the widget makes each comment window noticeably larger, if you have a lot of comment then it can take a while to get to the bottom of the comment list. There is the capacity to minimize each comment window to reduce space, but this is only for the current session. Once you refresh the comment windows are all maximized again.

On the plus side, being able to rate the comments left on your post and also review the ratings from other bloggers is very handy. You are also able to get a short history of the blog viewing habits of your commentators. With careful use this could provide and insight as to what type of posts are popular. This is always convenient when stuck for inspiration for your next post.

Blog directories are no longer simple directory listings. Blog directories are becoming more like social networking sites as the need for promoting the blogger rather than the individual post becomes more popular. Keep your eyes on your favorite blog directories as they start to offer more to you as the blogger.

When it comes to marketing your blog there are a ton of places online where you can do that. Blog directories are a great source of traffic and almost all of them are free. Here is a list of blog directories that you can list your blog at for greater exposure:

• Blog Hub
• Blog Explosion
• Blog Catalog
• Bloggernity
• Blog Listing
• Blog Flux
• Best of the Web
• Blog Top List
• Blog Rankings
• Blogarama
• Blog Hop
• LS Blogs
• Technorati
• iBlogBusiness
• Total Blog Directory

That’s a long list of blog directories, I know, but it’s not even all of them. There are plenty more. Some of these charge for listing your blog. Weigh that carefully to ensure it is worth the effort. BOTW (Best of the Web) charges a fee for a listing, but it’s a great source of traffic. Not all directories are so great, though.

Other blog directories require a link back to them in exchange for your listing. Blog Catalog, for instance, does this and gives you a choice on the size of the icons. I don’t recommend the huge banner that shows all your latest visitors. It looks cool for a personal blog, but it really doesn’t look right on a business blog. If you do link to blog that require a link back, use the small icon that simply lists the name of the blog without all of the extra fluff.

No matter how you do it, though, blog marketing isn’t complete without at least a half a dozen blog directory listings.