Tips for Submission

1. Make sure to include your main keyword somewhere in your title - for example “Greenthumb Home and Garden Blog” or “Gardening Blog - Greenthumb.” Switching up your titles not only helps keep your backlink profile looking more natural, you also have a better chance for ranking for variations of “keyword + blog” rather than putting all your eggs in one basket.
2. Use variations of site descriptions to keep things looking natural.
3. If you’re paying for a submission, make sure the page you expect to appear on is indexed by Google. How can you tell? Copy the URL, head over to the search engine, type in site:http://example.com/categories/yourcategory/page.php and hit Search. If a clickable listing appears, you at least know the page exists in Google and has a chance of passing some link kool-aid. If it doesn’t, keep your money!
4. Other directories will offer you a free link if you add a link to their site first. Yes, reciprocal links are very outdated, and even risky. However, if you download the Blog and RSS Directory List HTML Code and post it somewhere on your blog, you’ll satisfy that requirement in a way that makes sense to your readers too (hint). However, I would only recommend this technique for personal blogs and Internet / marketing blogs, not for a corporate or ecommerce site as a big page of blog directory links can look tacky. If you repost this list, we really appreciate that you link back to us using to code at the bottom of the list.
5. Some directories won’t link to you with a link that search engines will credit you for, rather they’ll use a rel=nofollow tag, redirect or “jump.” It doesn’t hurt to submit anyway, especially if they rank well in search engines for “your keyword + blogs” and might send you relevant traffic. But if you’re pressed for time, you might want to pass. But don’t worry, I’ve separated those directories into their own list so you can be sure the 50 Free Blog Directories below give real links.

About nine months ago, I compiled a list of blog directories based on posts from Robin Good and Lee Odden, and posted it on my personal blog. The other day I went back to it to make sure all the links were working and discovered many had disappeared off the face of the ‘Net! So I went through with a fine-tooth comb and revamped my list, and I want to share it with the blogger and ecommerce community. If you want to repost this list on your own blog, you can download the HTML code here.