Submitting Your Website to Web Directories

Updated 1/18/24 

If you have recently launched a website, you may be wondering how to get it noticed. New websites may take weeks to get “crawled” by search engines – a delay which can transform the heady, champagne-guzzling high of a website launch into a nail-biting, pillow-punching pit of despair. Ignored websites are like those trees that fall in forests in which there are apparently no animals with auditory capabilities.

Once you have passed that trial by fire, there is another one awaiting you. The search engines have found your website, but there is no traffic – other than members of various networking sites you have entreated to please visit! Now is the time to list your website on a web directory.

Web directories are not search engines. Search engines display lists of websites based on keywords found on the pages of your site. In contrast, a web directory lists websites by category and subcategory. Most web directories are run by people, usually volunteer editors. This can make the process of listing your site just as slow as a search engine. But it is worth the wait, because directories also include descriptions of the website's contents (written by you). A good, detailed description provides increased incentive for people to visit your website.

Important Tips for Website Submissions

Because website directories are organized by category (and staffed by harried humans), it is important to do the following:

• Find the most relevant category for your website, including sub-category.
• Include your most important keywords in your description.
• Observe submission guidelines (read them first!)
• Keep your descriptions concise and informative. (Your description is not an ad, avoid words like “best” and CAPS.)
• Look at the titles and descriptions of websites in the same category. Make yours similar in tone.
• Don't submit to a number of directories all at once. Search engines respond to a progression of new links each month.

Free directories

About Us

http://www.aboutus.org/

Currently, more than 9 million people visit AboutUs.org each month. Aside from listing your website, AboutUs provides a great “Home Page Analysis” to help you maximize your SEO. The analysis not only indicates problems with meta-tags, descriptions, and images, but will explain how to fix them. (I used this feature to improve the subheading on my site listings.) Highly recommended.

R-TT Web Directory
http://directory.r-tt.com/

This directory is organized by area of interest. It includes a section on "Arts." It doesn't get quite as much traffic as About Us or All the Websites, but it's free.

Paid Directories

Best of the Web

http://botw.org/

Best of the Web was founded in 1994 at SUNY Buffalo. It introduced the concept of recognizing the best sites online (through an annual vote). Best of the Web has long since abandoned their web awards, but it continues to maintain a list of high-quality, spam-free websites. The company employs a team of paid editors that search the web for sites with original content, taking into account user-friendliness and normative web standards. Best of the Web lists both commercial and non-commercial sites, which are reviewed by paid editors. (Best of the Web also maintain a Blog Directory which lists the best blogs online.)

As far as increasing traffic to your site, Best of the Web is considered one of the best directories to get into. 

Website Directories Lists

There are literally hundreds of directories out there. With the plethora of web directories, many of which may not apply to fiction writers (although most do list author sites), you may want to check out the most reliable and well-regarded sites before you start listing. Below are three well-organized and informative lists of directories. Go through these to find the niches that apply to you.

21 Web Directories That Still Have Value

Best Web Directories of 2022

Top Directory Submission Sites List 2023

With a little research, careful planning, and a judicious selection of where to list your site, your author's website can achieve not only greater exposure, but some SEO that is better than … (something else with three letters).

Everything I Did Wrong: Designing An Author's Website

Updated 5/29/26

It occurred to me some time during the last century that it would be a good idea to put up a website. I did so and, at the time, I thought it was brilliant – not that I could do a thing with it. (Much like my hair, it required the services of a professional.) Everything seemed to be written in some kind of code.

Several years later, when it dawned on me that having an up-to-date website might be advantageous (rather than one that reflected my activities of a decade earlier), I began to search for someone who understood this mysterious code.

The place to find people who knew about things like websites was obviously online. So, I placed an ad on guru.com. “Wanted: A computer-type person who can put up a five-page website for me. I write books.”

Within three days I was deluged by dozens of emails. Soon, the offers – ranging from $699 to $4000 – numbered in the hundreds. I began to receive staticky Skype calls late at night. (Apparently, Dubai is in a different time zone.) “What exactly do you want?” they asked. “SEO? Joomla? Slideshows?” I couldn't answer any of their questions. I despaired.

This was my first mistake: I assumed that other, more technical, people would be able to help me design my website. My second mistake came shortly afterward.

Realizing that I knew nothing about websites, I began to investigate. I discovered that there were free websites available everywhere, and that they were based on templates. What's more, these templates required no computer skills whatsoever. They were designed for people like me. (And they were used by those very people who wanted to charge me $699 for one page.)

I began to look at templates. Oh, lord. There were thousands of them. I spent days looking at WordPress templates, Google templates, free templates of all kinds. My head hurt. This was my second mistake. I assumed that I could pick a template. I couldn't – there were too many of them, and none of them seemed appropriate for a writer.

Then the realization hit me. I was going about this all wrong. There were other authors in the world, and they had websites! All I needed to do was find one that I liked and copy the format.

So, I found an author's site I liked on Author's Guild. Then, I went to Weebly, which is the simplest website builder for the technologically challenged, and located a template that was closest to the author's website I had found.

Looking at what other authors had done helped me to choose a good template on Weebly, which I accomplished painlessly in a less than an hour. From there it was easy. I imitated. (And, unless reinventing the wheel is your idea of fun, so should you.) Here are some great examples:

45+ Author Websites with Stellar Designs

Best Author Websites of 2026 | 76 Inspiring Examples

Our 15 Favourite Author Websites (and Why)

Components of an author's website

This is the website model used by hundreds of successful authors (and which I appropriated without hesitation):

1. The first page should consist of a photo of you that shows your personality – according to your subject matter (children's book authors, smile! and look trustworthy; serious literary novelists, look deep). There should be a short, interesting bio. This page is also where you can put the latest professional news about yourself. (Upcoming publications, endorsements, speaking engagements, and so on.) (This page can be reversed with Page 2. It depends on whether you want to put you or your books front and center.)
2. The second page features your books: images of the covers, one paragraph descriptions, and where to purchase. (This page can be reversed with Page 1.)
3. Page three is an enticing excerpt from forthcoming work or your most recent release. 
4. Page four is a selection of your other published writing – essays, short stories, if you have written them. Or page four can be an events calendar. (This page is really up for grabs. But, please, no photos of your cat.) 
5. The fifth page is your blog. Everyone who is anyone writes a blog. Besides, authors' blogs are always read by prospective agents.
6. “Contact us” is your sixth page. You must make yourself available to potential readers, agents, and Nobel Prize nominations. Don't post your email address - use a form to avoid spam and dodgy proposals of marriage.
7. Any additional pages you want to add, go ahead. 

Keep it simple

A website should be easy to read. Stick to conventional typefaces, and do not, under any circumstances, choose a light typeface against a dark background. It's true you can do just about anything with typefaces and colors - but don't let that tempt you into chartreuse or, god forbid, brown. (I've seen that combination on an author's website, and it's not only ugly, it's a sin.) It may not be trendy, but use a plain white background and black typeface.

Avoid trends. Gray backgrounds used to be a trend. They were hard to read and have now been replaced by large images. These are a waste of space, and hopefully will go the way of gray backgrounds. (The only images should be of you and your books.) The risk of following trends is that your website will rapidly look outdated. Stick to a classic look and your website will never go out of style. (The latest trend seems to be fade-ins. I hate them with a passion! They are distracting, and that is precisely what you DON'T want on your website. You want readers to find information quickly and easily, without jumping through hoops to get it.)

Final words

Even if you have not yet been published, you absolutely MUST have an author's website. Websites are not optional; they are a requirement for anyone with something to sell. (Authors are not only selling their writing, they are selling themselves.) At the very least, put up your first page (bio and photo), a blog, and a contact page. If you want to talk about your current writing project, do so on your blog.

Unless it is an excerpt from your forthcoming book, do not post your unpublished writing for readers to critique!! There are forums for that sort of thing. Your website is where you must come across as a professional. Take yourself seriously, and others will as well.