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.

Interesting question.  Do you concentrate on the various blog directories or do you concentrate on blog SEO? The real answer is most likely, ‘both’.

If you are wondering where you should concentrate your efforts then I suggest you forget the terminology for now. The real question becomes, do you concentrate on people (blog directories) or search engines and their spiders (blog SEO).

If you are looking to concentrate on people then your blog needs to reflect that. The content needs to be written in a user friendly manner. If your main focus is search engine rankings, your content needs to be keyword rich. Whilst you can write friendly keyword rich articles, it can become very taxing trying to produce it on a daily basis.

I hate to sound like I am sitting on the fence, however in this case I going to have to suffer a few splinters. I don’t see why you cannot do both, but in a less taxing manner. Write your articles in a user friendly manner; make sure there are an adequate supply of keywords within the articles. Whenever possible, write a full keyword rich article.

The user friendly articles, whilst still containing keywords, are going to keep your readers coming back. If you have the occasional keyword rich but slightly reader unfriendly, your reader are not going to be to troubled. It is the overall image that is going to be important.

What is your preference and does your blog reflect it. Writing for the masses enables you to use the various blog directories to their fullest. Writing for search engine spiders may not attract the masses but it will place you highly on the results pages for the various search engines. Write for both, and you will have one of those special blogs that attracts thousands of visitors each and every day.

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.

Most bloggers still obsess about their page views, but with RSS (Real Simple Syndication) becoming more and more popular, the number of RSS readers is getting to be that much more valuable.

Bloglines, a popular RSS reader, has started posting what their top 1000 RSS feeds are.   While not exactly a blog directory, it is an interesting insight in to what people are looking for in the blogosphere.  Go over and take a look, see if any of the blogs come close to matching what you’re trying to do.  Is there anything they’re doing that you’re not?

I am of course not suggesting you copy any site verbatim, ever, but why not at least learn from them?  What makes their RSS feed so attractive to readers?  Is it frequency of posting?  Content?  Something is making those people sign up, and this seems like the perfect centralized resource to study it.

When marketing your blog and seeking traffic, you need to consider a few things like

1. Who your blog is targeted at
2. What topics you cover in your blog
3. How often you blog
4. Where you expect the majority of your readers to come from
5. Even why you blog

The sources of your blog traffic depends a great deal on some of these factors, but not entirely. It is best to seek traffic some several sources at once. That’s why I highly recommend blog directories. But there is more than one directroy online and all of them can deliver traffic to your blog. The biggest drawback to these directories is that most of them require a reciprocal link. Some of them even require a display ad be placed on your blog. If you put too many of these on your blog then your blog will look cluttered. That’s why you need to carefully consider which blog directories to include your blog in.

Here’s a list of blog directories that you can consider for your marketing efforts:

• Blog Catalog (www.blogcatalog.com)
• Best of the Web (blogs.botw.org/)
• Blogarama (www.blogarama.com)
• Blogdirs (www.blogdirs.com)
• iBlog Business (www.iblogbusiness.com)
• Blog Universe (www.bloguniverse.com)
• Globe of Blogs (www.globeofblogs.com)

These are not the only blog directories online, however. There are plenty more. Blog directories are a great source of traffic. Pick the one(s) that have the most potential for your blog.

I signed up with blog catalog for some of my blogs. I’ve been testing and looking at a few different directories so I can pass along this information to my readers.

If I was using a scale of 1-10 to rate blog directories, Blog Catalog would get at least a 9. One blog kept getting denied due to the reviewer not finding my link back to their directory. Their phone number was on the contact page, so I called, expecting the usual message, “Most questions can be answered through our FAQ on our website”, or “leave a message and we will respond someday” like you get from many directories and websites.

Instead, they answered the phone, asked for the url to the blog in question, saw the link, apologized, and approved the blog right there on the phone. It took all of 5 minutes.

That alone gets them points from me. This day and age, good customer service is rare and those few who provide it stand out from the crowd.

Add to that, the traffic I get from my blogs being listed there is great and I’m not even participating much in the community there yet. I expect it will only get better.

I’m going to continue to explore different blog directories, blog communities, and social bookmarking sites and I’m open to suggestions for those you would like to see reviewed here,

Something I have personally been a little lax in is using blog directories to pull in more traffic to my blogs. It just hasn’t been a priority and it gets moved down the list for other things that seem more important.

But I’m wrong to do that. Blog directories are important. They can help your blog with link popularity and send you a lot more traffic.

I blog and ping with the best of them, but I need to take more time to list my blogs in blog directories and so should you if you are not already doing so.

In the next few days, I’m going to stay on the topic of blog directories and blog search sites. I’m going to examine a new blog directory every day, so I welcome your suggestions of which blog directories I should review.

Today, I want to talk about one I’ve never used before until now. www.BlogCatalog.com

What is BlogCatalog?

Blog Catalog is the premiere social blog directory on the internet. Whether you’re looking to promote your own blog or find blogs on various topics, this site is for you.

That was from the blog catalog website. I’m not sure if they are the premiere directory or not. We all want to be the premiere something.

However, they do have a Google PageRank of 7 and they are ranked 1,499 at Alexa, so some of you reading this probably wonder how I never used it with as many blogs as I own and manage. Well, me too.

As I said, I’ve virtually ignored the blog directories except for the long list of sites I ping whenever I make a blog post. With just blog and ping, I’ve done very well. However, that doesn’t mean I don’t need to improve and use all the tools at my disposal. I obviously have a lot of room for improvement. How about you?

I’m just getting started testing blog directories like blogcatalog.com and want to use this blog to let you know how that improves the traffic to my blogs. I would love to hear how blogcatalog.com or other blog directories are working out for you as well.

I do a lot of tracking to see where my traffic comes from. I use those stats to drive the way I do things. I will be able to quantify the advantages of using each blog directory and in a month I will follow this post up with a review of blogcatalog.com and other blog directories I use here. So give me your list of blog directories you want me to try!