By Manish Mathukiya

Link Building is very crucial in search engine optimization. It denotes the process of building external links so that a user browsing a website could easily find more or other relevant info on the same topic by referring to those links.

Search engines give due weightage to similar practices and rank such websites higher than ordinary ones. In their ranking process, search engines consider links pointing to a website as 'votes' to the respective website, an appreciation to its relevance or importance given by other websites, and hence rates such websites higher in the order amongst search results.

In short, the more the links pointing towards a website, the better will be its page rank. But, on a finer scale, it should also be kept in mind that most of the links pointing towards a website must be from high ranked pages for better page rankings. Further, out of context links does more damage than providing any real benefit.

Getting Links From Web Directories
So, how to get other websites link to your website? Well, one way to achieve that is through directory submissions.

There is an assortment of search engine friendly directories available ­ such as open directory project, MSN and Yahoo - that will be ready to link to your website provided it includes relevant information and confirms with their guidelines and rules of submission.

But, care must be taken that you are submitting your website to only relevant directories and to the right categories and not anything in random. It may take a bit of research and effort to get your website submitted in the relevant and popular directories.

But once your website could make a permanent listing in the popular directory or directories, soon the traffic to the website will increase and more advertisements and permanent links starts to flow in with enhanced ease. Once reached that level, the link building will become self sustaining and the search engine rankings also will improve accordingly, provided your website continues to provide useful and relevant contents in a consistent manner.

Search Engines vs. Web Directories
The difference between search engines and web directories is that in the latter, it is human editors who decide on the final submission location and not an automated tool. Since it is human editors who are making the final call, the chances are high that a website might reach its right destination in terms of directory/category, most of the time.

How to Get Accepted In Web Directories
It is clear from the foregoing that directory submission could contribute immensely to link building. But, how to get your website acceptable to directories?

In order to get better acceptance in directory submissions, the first thing to take note is to make your website relevant to the directories. Any thing junk or random is not entertained by any of the popular directories.

Further, submitting your webpage in to right categories makes the process quicker and such pages will generally gets listed without any delay. Remember, it is manual editors who accepts or rejects applications for submissions, and for a person who might be viewing thousands of web pages daily, it is far easier to reject a page than accepting it. So, the easier you make it for an editor to read and understand your application, the more chance you stand of having it accepted.

Another aspect that goes a long way in enhancing acceptance in directories is the way the titles, description and keywords are organized for a web page.

Every directory will have their own rules and regulations, and hence web pages must also be organized around such constraints. Regarding descriptions, most directories require it to be short ­ in the range of 100 ­ 250 words that may vary from one directory to another ­ crisp, and to the point. Descriptions that are huge or of the 'beating around the bush' type are generally showed the door by the directory editors.