For your website to rank well, you need good Search Engine Optimization (SEO) practices applied to your website.

Part of ranking well on Google involves inbound links, which are links that point to your website from other websites. When another website links to your website, you can think of it as a "vote" for your website. It thinks your site is a valuable resource to link to. The more that particular website relates to yours, the stronger that vote is and the more it counts. So you really need inbound links and they are very important to ranking well.

It is good to get about 10-25 inbound links from website directories. The first prominent website directory on the web was Yahoo. They still have an active directory and it's used to derive your websites rank in their search and also on Google. So you want to be in web directories similar to Yahoo that have categories that relate to your website. Some of these web directories are free to join and some will charge a listing fee. That listing fee doesn't always mean that your website will be included, but it's to cover the time for someone to look over your website.

Below is a list of the paid web directories we suggest you belong to. If you want to belong to these, then what we do is give you the information (like the URL, title and description) to enter for each and then you would register for these yourself and pay the listing fees since some of these would renew year after year.

• Yahoo! Web Directory ($299/year)
• Best of the Web Directory ($99.95/year or $249.95/one time)
• Business.com ($299/year)
• GoGuides ($69.95/one time)
• Uncover the Net ($59.00/year or $159.00/one time)
• Gimpsy ($49/one time)
• Joe Ant ($39.99/ one time)
• Site Sift ($29.95/year or $49.95/one time)
• Net Guild ($14.95/one time)
• WhatUSeek ($49.99 and then $16.99/year)
• This is Our Year ($24.95/one time)

If your website is in the Madison, WI area, then you may consider these additional directories:

• MadisonClick.net ($29.95/year or $89.95/one time)
• WisconsinClick ($24.95/one time)

The prices listed here are current at the time this page was created but Webstix does not guarantee these prices listed.

We highly suggest getting into the Yahoo directory and Best of the Web. Other directories are not very expensive for one time fees and you should have at least 10 inbound links from directories, so these are the ones to choose.

There are some free web directories like DMOZ, which you should be in. Those are not listed here since we will take care of getting those links for you.

Beyond getting links from website directories, you'll need links from other related websites and we will help you with that process. Please do not sign up anywhere to get your website submitted automatically to "x" number of directories. You could end up with too many links out there too soon which can hurt your ranking. It's best to do it manually and in the right places.