I got a request from one of my client to review different directories to determine which ones will benefit his site most.

Directory listing can be a great tool to drive traffic to your web site. In most cases they are established websites, known by the people in the industry. You don't just pay a certain amount and get included in their listing. These directory listing websites analyze your site and determine if the content of your site passes their quality requirement.

The misconception by most people is these directory listing are great tools to build incoming links to your site fast. There are a lot of paid directory listings that claim to help your site to generate incoming links which will result in high rankings for your site your site on Search Engines.

Let me remind the 3 rules of Search Engine Optimization:

1. Quality Content
2. Great choice of keywords (phrases)
3. QUALITY INCOMING LINKS

Not incoming links but QUALITY links will generate the impact you are seeking on the search engines.

If you hear the sales pitch:
"If you get listed with us, you will have a higher ranking on the Search Engines"
Be skeptical. If they don't care about the quality of your site, the success you will see might not last that long.

QUICK CHECKLIST TO DETERMINE IF YOU ARE PAYING FOR NOTHING:

• Does this directory listing have a review period for your website?
  If they will not review your website, this might indicate that being listed under this particular directory will not benefit you in terms of your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) efforts.
  
• Will Search Engines follow your link on this directory listing?
  Google insists that sites use nofollow property on all paid links, which tells the spider not to follow this link. If the spider does not follow the link, this particular link to your site will not count as an incoming link. It is common belief that Google will not enforce this on the directory listing that has strict quality requirements.
  
• Does the directory listing itself have content?
  I believe the best directory listing sites are the article directory sites. Quality content is required to be included on these sites. An article with quality content that includes good choice of keywords will bring more success to your site.