Best directories to post links to our new website

Hi all,

We've had a website for some time, which I've managed to keep at Google's number 1 spot for our chosen keywords (largely thanks to all the information I've gained via this website!).

We supply a service to both domestic and business sectors, but we've recently built a second site to solely handle our domestic sales, and plan to strip the domestic content out of our original site, leaving it targetted purely at the commercial sector.

The domain name of this new site is our chosen keywords, which incidentally get an average of 20,000 google searches per month.

The question I have is, can anyone offer a top ten (or more) list of free online directories where it would be most beneficial to start getting our details (and website URL link) listed?

I'm not adversed to paying for inclusion in online directories, but there are thousands and I feel that getting some free listings in the more respected directories would be a better start.

So where do I start posting those 'must have' inbound links?

Regards to all

Steve

I dont know why you even want directories. They dont work anymore. They dont provide any value.

Bit like your reply then

Hi Gelidus,

Congrat's on your success thus far.

There are some lists in this forum and you can also see recent discussions on the subject here and here.

Thanks Clicky,

Thanks for the info. Looking through them, most of the directories ask for Company name, URL and some keywords.

Do you think there's any benefit in giving our domestic 'sub-division' a trading name that related to our keywords?

For example,

If our keywords were "domestic appliance repair", we already have the keyword-rich domain 'domesticappliancerepair.co.uk'.

If we branded this sub-division of our Company 'Domestic Appliance Repair Services', would there be any SEO benefit if our entries within these online directories became:

Company: Domestic Appliance Repair Services
URL: domesticappliancerepair.co.uk
Keywords: 'domestic appliance repair'

or do you think the Company name used in our directory listings is irrelevant?

Thanks in advance!

Steve

Hi Steve,

Since the site title generally makes up the link anchor text in directories, the name/title is very important, as link anchors have a major influence on your KW rankings.

If you are thinking in terms of submitting to huge numbers of directories (or campaining to gain huge numbers of backlinks from anywhere), you should vary your anchors to ensure that the links gained look "natural" - particularly to Google - as that can cause problems (normally assumed to be a result of the speed of backlink growth)!
Having said that, if your url and title are virtually identical, I believe you won't have too much of a problem in that respect.