7 Day to website success - Day 1 (2)

Web directories are good for your site in two ways.

You can get traffic from them - the more popular directories, such as Yahoo Directory and Open Directory Project, get millions of visitors per month. If you are listed there, then chances are some of that traffic will come your way.
Search Engines use directories to find new sites - Human edited directories such as the one on ProfitChoice.com and Yahoo are highly regarded by search engines because a human being has actually reviewed all the sites. Because a human being has reviewed each site, the big search engines can be pretty sure the sites are high quality, and they belong in the categories in which they are listed.

The Biggest Problem is Time

One of the biggest problems with starting up a new website is the time that is required to get the search engines to index the site, and then to actually rank it.
The “Big Three” search engines (Google, MSN, and Yahoo) all have a delay between when they “discover” your website, and when they actually list it in their indexes. On Google, this delay is known as the “sandbox” effect, but the others have similar delay algorithms. The delay can take anywhere from a couple of weeks to several months just to get listed in the index. In fact, ranking well on Google for highly competitive terms can take over a year. Therefore, the sooner you get the process started, the sooner you will start to see results.
I always recommend to my clients that they not wait until their website is “finished” to go ahead and roll it live. It is far better to get the basic skeleton of the site online, and then add content and build out the sections while you wait for the search engines to get to know you. In general, I build the first five pages of a website (Home page, Main Product page, Secondary Product Page, About Us page, and a Content Page), roll it live, and submit it to directories before I do anything else.
Paid Directories
There are also paid directories out there that you might consider using. While I would focus my initial efforts on the free directories, you might consider taking a look at Yahoo. Yahoo is one of the most important (and at $300/year it is also one of the most expensive) web directories. You can access Yahoo’s directory here: dir.yahoo.com. Most paid directories charge $10 - $50 per year for inclusion. 

Yahoo’s directory is well-regarded by many search engines, so listing your website there for the first year will make your site more likely to get listed in the major search engines. Once you have been included in the major Search Engines, you might consider using the budget from Yahoo to spend on other directories to increase the number of sites linking to you (this is good for the search engine optimization work that you will do on day 3).

If you really don’t have any money to spend on directory listings, then don’t worry too much about it. You can concentrate on the free directories, and you will eventually get picked up by the major search engines anyway.