One of the things I put into my weekly schedule was submitting my sites to free online directories. I’ve been doing a fair job of keeping up with it, I think.

One thing that amazes me, however, is how quickly some sites go from having a free option to being paid submissions only. Every time there are a few ones that have made the switch. I’m not complaining; keeping up with submissions can be a lot of work! But then I also don’t mind if it takes a long time for them to get to my free submissions.

I pretty much have a submit and forget policy on my free submissions. If I were paying, then I would care a great deal about it, but for freebies I’m not going to keep checking back to see what happened. I got into that habit with DMOZ, where resubmitting at best puts you back at the end of the review queue.

If you want to know my list of free directories, here’s the resource: Vilesilencer. He has the best list of free directories that I know of, and he maintains it. Beyond that, I strongly recommend using software that helps fill out the forms for you but still lets you handle some things manually. You don’t want to get labeled a spammer. If it fills out everything but you have to choose the category, you’re probably in good shape.

I use an old version of Ezine Announcer. The software has changed a lot in the past couple years, so I don’t know if you can still easily add directories so that you can quickly add your website to them. I just picked a category I won’t even be trying to make a site, never mind an ezine in, deleted the sites there and added in the regular website directories. After all, there is very little difference between submitting your ezine and submitting your website; much of the information required is the same.

It still takes a while to get through Vilesilencer’s entire list, but we’re talking a couple hours, not days, once you have all the sites added and have autoforms for them all. That part takes some time, but it’s worth it.