Link building for directories is a hard job (I am talking of course for natural links). Very few people, if any will naturally link to a directory, so directory owners need to try hard to find backlinks. Let’s take a look at some of the available ways to get free natural backlinks.
Directory lists: That’s a good place to start, there are a number of available lists of free and paid directories. Some of them are:
Directory Critic
VileSilencer’s SEO friendly list
Seocompany’s list
Addurl.nu
Tips and Tutorials
Directory Tracker
Directory List
and my favorite and the one that I was keeping to myself (until it was posted on DigitalPoint)
Search Engine Colossus
Infosales
4th Media
Hitslog
Isedb
Ranking Directories
Incoming Links
Directory Source
Site Vortex
Best Web Direcories
Strongest Links
Koopy
There are a few more but you need to search a bit. The good thing with directory lists is that they send traffic, so besides the PR benefit you can get traffic and submissions. Personally not all my directories are listed at the sites above. The main reason is timing, I am waiting for a couple of things to happen before I submit them.
These links are nice but they are not enough because probably all of your competitors will be listed there so if you don’t have any other links pointing to your directory you simply won’t have an advantage over them.
You have to work harder than that, here are a few ways to get backlinks, if I have missed something feel free to add to this list by leaving a comment.
1. Competition Analysis: Analyze the links of the competition and try to identify natural, not bought, not exchanged links. Then try to get a link at the same site by sending a nice email to the webmaster. This is how I found the Search Engine Colossus. Lets look at an example of how you can digg deeper and deeper for links. Let’s say that I was analyzing the directoryX and I found Search Engine Colossus. I send a submission request and get my site listed, do you stop here? No, then I analyze Search Engine Colossus which of course isn’t a competitor but a related site, aged with tons of natural backlinks and with a proper analysis you will sure find more places to add your link 
and more sites to continue your link analysis.
2. Directory Submission: OK the obvious, submit to many directories and if you are too lazy hire someone to do it for you.
3. Offer Reciprocal Links: I have never tried this technique but I guess that for a directory with decent PR can work quite well. The reason that I am not trying it is that I am afraid that the quality of the links will be very low. A lot of webmasters set up a page especially for reciprocal links and reciprocals directories (some of them don’t even link to this page from anywhere in the site, lol ), so I am afraid that it will only lead to get a lot of links but from “linkfarms”. The only directories that have been doing this and are successful are blog directories. Bloggers (mostly non-webmasters bloggers) are link happy and will gladly provide a backlink especially if you offer a cool little button.
4. Link Bait: Let’s move now to the tough part how can you create link bait for a directory? The obvious way is to start a blog on a subdomain ie. blog.directory.com and use the blog for link baiting. Not all traffic or PR will pass to the directory but it’s better than nothing. I guess even a blog in a different domain can help (Don’t look at me like that 
I didn’t create this blog for this). After that you need to improvise, here is an idea that I was thinking of to use at one of my directories but I decided not to so I might as well post it in case anyone else wants to try it. Free directories get a lot of spam submissions but they get a few really high quality submissions as well. The idea is to create a Site of the Month-Editor’s Pick or something else like that section. Then create a cool graphic award button and when you get quality submissions send an email saying You have been awarded the editor’s pick award feel free to use this badge at your site (Of course the badge will be linking back to your directory). This is of course pretty rough but you get the idea. Not everyone will add the badge but a few (mainly bloggers 
) will probably use it. I got this idea by looking at software download sites and wondering where do they get all of their backlinks. Moral of the story look around and you will find ideas.
5. Network Sites: Obviously again, if you own a network of successful sites it helps a lot. However I believe it is important how you are going to use your sites. I hate giving advice about staff like that so I will stop here.
6. Free Stuff: Everyone loves free stuff, in this case it could be webmaster tools that people can add to their websites (with a link back of course). This is something that a lot of sites like Seochat and DigitalPoint (the geovisitors) have been doing with success.
7. Articles: This is a standard technique to get backlinks, write articles and submit them to article directories, It’s a technique however that I don’t really use, probably because I am too lazy. Another way to use articles is to create an article section at your directory and use it as a link trap. I have seen a relatively new directory (won’t give names) doing this and it got at least one nice PR8 link at an authority website and probably quite a lot of traffic (not bad if you ask me).
Finally keep your eyes open, there are always opportunities to get links, study the big directories and other smaller ones but don’t forget to check similarly structured websites for ideas (see point 4 example). The good thing with directories is that during link building you don’t need to worry to much about anchor text etc. Any link that is on a nice website and that can send you traffic and maybe pass some PR is a good link.
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- Link Development for Directories Random Thoughts I was thinking about what kind of links a directory owner should try to get. My view of the topic
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July 6th, 2006 at 5:56 am
Great article and good tips for directory owners. In the few short months of my directory I’ve found that about 1 in 10 give me the optional reciprocal and about 1 in 5 of those are valuable, in terms of having decent PR.
Nevertheless, everything helps.
July 6th, 2006 at 3:54 pm
Great article! It’s real help for every directory owner
July 10th, 2006 at 8:12 pm
Hi - could you explain this one please? “Another way to use articles is to create an article section at your directory and use it as a link trap.” Thanks!
July 12th, 2006 at 7:14 am
Hi Caroline, a simple example would be writting let’s say php tutorials and submitting them to tutorial sites or a very detailed guide of something that people will reference when they talk about that something etc.
July 16th, 2006 at 6:14 am
I have heard too much about link baiting. But i am still not understanding it properly. I wrote some articles and submitted to the article repositories. But nothing is happening.
July 17th, 2006 at 5:26 am
Link baiting is completely different from article submission. Link baiting is based on submitting a buzz, for example I write a review saying that the x big directory is a waste of money, then they respond and link to me then it gets picked up in a couple of webmasters forums and they link back to me again, then some seo blogs picl it up and they link back to me etc. Of course this is just an example of how you can do link baiting.
August 3rd, 2006 at 6:25 pm
Another good example of link baiting is providing a service. I know of several sites that use a PR checker script to get people to link back to, it’s a matter of finding something unique that peole want to link to.