How can you find the best directories to list on with a limited budget? There are many factors to compare and consider but fundamentally you should consider the same factors we would with any other advertising. In no particular order, four core text link values are:

1. Relevancy
2. Quality
3. Traffic
4. Cost

Your specific needs will determine which of these is most important to you. For SEO/SEM the relevancy and quality may be more important than traffic, but traffic might be important if you need to drive immediate visitors to your site. Only the most popular directories drive a significant amount of traffic, and these can be fairly expensive. The cumulative effect of being listed in many medium-sized directories can also result in good traffic though, and can often be much more affordable.

Some Webmasters will list in thousands of directories using bulk submission, but I rarely take this approach. Usually you end up getting the exact same listing on hundreds of low quality sites. I tend to prefer a more diverse and rich set of listings on a smaller number of higher quality sites.

Some Webmasters also frown upon new directories since they have no established “authority” in search engines. I like new directories because they are often being actively promoted, whereas many older directories are simply lying dormant. It has also been my experience that search engines (Google in particular) frown on new content in some respects, but also love delivering fresh results.