What to look for when choosing Quality Paid, Free or Reciprocal Directories to submit to?

Whilst directory links are no longer as valuable or effective as what they used to be, they can find creditable & quality links that are not going to break the budget.

Directories can provide relevant & quality links and will still be considered important with users finding them to be quality resources.

Be smart with your directory submissions and don’t waste your money by trying to grow your inbound link profile significantly for the sake of having tons of links.

Be clever and focus on finding the most relevant directories that are going to provide a quality link back to your website that will also provide value to users instead of just providing a list of services to users as you may not get the desired results from this approach.

So what do you look for when trying to determine if a directory is going to be valuable to your website?

I came across a fabulous article that interviews Greg Hartnett from BOTW on http://www.avivadirectory.com from back in 2007 and found some of the information valuable with of the approaches provided here very similar to what I have been considering whilst completing link building for myself!

Here are some of his questions & suggestions  you should consider when choosing quality directories:

• Check the history of the directory using who is?
• Check the age of the directory?
  If the directory has a good history of being a good resource I would be more inclined to consider using the directory.
• You must consider the links that are already in the directory – You need to determine whether the links are just included to any one who is willing to pay.
  Or are the directory listings containing relevant information for each of the categories.
• Does the directory adding in their own resources to provide relevant information?
  Or is the directory solely focused on generating revenue relying on paid submissions?
• Is the directory focus around providing a list of services for webmasters?
  Or is the directory focused on a user experience?
• Does the directory provide a clear navigation throughout the directory categories?
  Not only is this focusing on the relevance of the link you are placing in the directory but more importantly is the ability for users to be able to navigate through the directory clearly & easily
• Are the websites in the directory being listed in a relevant way?
• Are the categories included in the URL structure to make the page your link is on more relevant to the link you are including?

I am sure there are more things to look for when choosing a directory to submit to that I have not included here.

Please feel free to include you suggestions in the comments.