When your website is new and you set out to get quality links, a great way to do this is by submitting your website to many of the various web directories that exists today. By doing so you will gain valuable back links to your website and this in turn will help with the popularity of your website and your website will get a better ranking in the search engines as a result.

Some web directories are free and some cost money and the natural reaction would be to go with all the freebies. This however could prove ineffective as linking to a bunch of low ranking web directories that are not very relevant -meaning they have no category that matches your website- to your website does you little good. On the other hand, if you link to just a few high quality web directories the rewards on the search engines can be great. The big question that always comes up is which web directories are actually worth paying for?

While there is no set in stone rule on figuring out which web directories you should pay for to use, you should remember to always go with ones that are relevant to your website and that have a good page ranking. Here are some of the best of the best for pay web directories:

• Yahoo: Yahoo is very expensive and listing your website on their web directory will cost you a couple hundred bucks, but there is little doubt that it will be to your benefit. Along with the name of the company, you have the advantage of all the traffic that uses the site. If you are paying to be listed in their web directory and your competitor is not, then obviously you will stand a better chance of standing out with them. One drawback is that you will have to pay their fee every year or risk being delisted.

• Business.com: Here again you will not get off cheap, but you will gain one very valuable link. The site is searched on a regular basis and if you are going to pay for a web directory then Business.com probably ranks right up there with Yahoo as far as effectiveness goes. Again, the fee with this web directory is an annual one.

• Directory Journal: Unlike many pay web directories, Directory Journal only requires that you pay a one-time fee and not every single year. You can also optimize some of the internal pages on your website as this directory allows you to submit some deep links. The result is a great link back to your site and some welcomed exposure for multiple pages on your website.

While there are many other pay web directories available, these are probably going to leave you with the biggest bang for your buck. This is not to discount the freebies as there are still some quality free web directories that can be used, but free directories should only be used in conjunction with pay directories and never as a standalone strategy.