To get your site listed in as many directories as possible, you need to thin k about why they would want to list you. If you have a high quality site, chance is higher to get listed, but if your niche is popular, this might not always do the trick. Many directory owners find them selves with hundreds of submissions every day, it's hard to keep up. When faced with piles of sites to review, it's only natural to try to speed up the process. They don't have enough time to spend, to give every site a fair chance. To improve your odds of getting listed, your site should impress ? or at least be of good quality ? even at a first glance.

This includes having a nice, clean design ? not a clutter of banners and ads, no broken links and, in my opinion, no overuse of testimonials. If you have a site and/or products of high quality, you shouldn't have to write about it, but yet sites literally made up of testimonials are fairly common.

Choose the best category for your website.

Be sure to take a moment or two to really find the most appropriate category for your site. Don't submit to a parent category if a more detailed page would be more fitting. The potential loss in PR will be more than compensated for by the high relevance in the more detailed category.

Reciprocate whenever possible.

Although many directories offer free submissions without reciprocal links, they ? as any webmaster ? also appreciate links. If you have link pages, you should try to reciprocate even if it takes a while longer. If you are submitting a web directory ? or if your site is mainly consistent of links ? reciprocating is pretty much a must at most directories.

Don't submit all your sites at once

If you are running multiple sites of similar nature, submitting them all at once may seem too much for any webmaster reviewing them. Often the task of reviewing submissions can be lengthy, seeing virtually the same content on five sites will increase the importance of high quality sites.

Don't submit all your sub-pages

If a directory allows deep linking ? which is very rare for free submissions ? it will almost always state it in the submission guidelines. If you do not see it, don't bother submitting each and every sub-domain you can think of, it will only make your main URL less likely to be included.

No keyword stuffing

Adding to many keywords in the Title-field is an almost certain way of not getting your site listed. Stick to the official title, or small variations of it. Try to alter the description of your website if you submit it to many directories, to add some variation to your targeted keywords.

If you consider all these factors before submitting your sites to web directories, your chances for inclusion will increase, making it far easier to gain link popularity.