Getting inbound links to your website is a great way to boost your search engine rankings and the most effective way to do it is by submitting your website to directories. This gives you more links pointing back to your website and a higher status in the search engines. However, getting listed with directories is a skilled job, so manual directory submission is the way to go.

Directories are like indexes or libraries of links to web sites with appended descriptions or summaries. By searching through categories, searchers can find websites covering the topic they're interested in. While this is one way to get traffic, the real benefit of being listed in good directories is that you will get a link (or links) back to your web site. The search engines see these links as a vote for your site. So the more links you have, the higher your page rank (PR) and the higher your ranking in the SERPS. And the higher you rank, the easier is it for people to find you.

However directory submission is a complex procedure. For one thing, the better directories often ignore automated submissions and your site may be banned. Plus there are thousands of directories of varying types, standards, and procedures for requesting inclusion. For one thing, you need to place your web site in the most suitable

category and subcategory of the directory. If you get this wrong, your request will get rejected.

In addition, directory submission requires knowledge of search engine optimization (SEO). For example, the choice of anchor text is important in determining the weight which the search engines give to the link. Specifically, the text that the directory uses to describe the link should include the keywords that you wish to rank for. Automatic submission can crop this text to fit the space, and effective keywords may be lost.

Then it's important to consider to which pages on your web site the links in the directories point to. If all the links are to your home page, it looks unnatural. So getting a range of links to other pages in your site (deep linking) is a sound strategy, but one that requires an expert's touch. Plus it's a good idea to vary your link title and description for each submission.

For these reasons, manual submission is the only way to go and it makes sense to outsource your linking campaign to a firm offering manual directory submission services. Manual link submission is a labor-intensive, time-consuming procedure that requires specialist knowledge of the prevailing policies of the directories. A quality firm will handle the whole procedure for you and leave you free to get on with activities that are more productive.