The value of web directories for SEO is a moot point.  Some dismiss them as having little overall effect on your rankings whilst others, well myself anyway, would argue that there is real value in submitting your site to directories, as long as it is done in the correct way.  This post by SEOBOOK gives an authoritative look at the question of directories and their relative value to your SEO campaign.

Firstly, you shouldn’t base your whole link building strategy on directories, especially if you are looking to optimise for competitive keyphrases.  The whole question of directories and SEO came under the spotlight when Google announced that is was apparently devaluing links from Yahoo and DMOZ.  However I would argue that there is still value in submitting to directories because…

- At the end of the day a link from Yahoo / DMOZ / Business.com is a high powered link.  These are authoritative sites with thousands of links pointing into them.  Even if Google has devalued there SEO value, it is unlikely they have completely diminished it.

- Directories help get your pages indexed.  Aside from ranking well, you are going to want the search engines to see all of your content.  This is especially useful for new sites with no existing links.  You can buy dozens of directory links for this purpose only, and they need not be relevant or high powered.

- Relevant directory links will help your rankings. If you can find niche directories these will improve your ranking chances as search engines will see the relevance of a similar themed directory linking to you.  If the directory is on an older domain, this will be of huge additional benefit.

- Some directory pages have good PageRank and their inner pages maybe PR4 or PR5.  Think about the ontology of the words on the page linking to your site.

Some directory listings could cost $200 and above,  but could really be worth it if it is a relevant, high powered and old domain.  My advice would be add your site to relevant directories and do it gradually – and don’t make it your ONLY form of link building!