As you hopefully know, we’ve recently released the live version of TripHappy. It’s finally time to take off our developer hats and focus our effort on driving traffic to our application. One of our first goals is to build some domain authority for our site. A common way of doing this is to submit your site to startup directories and review sites. We quickly found hundreds of different review sites. Most of these sites were outdated, half of the links were dead, and some were of dubious quality that will actually hurt your search engine ranking. I spent the last week researching and submitting our site to these directories, and I am writing this post to share everything I learned, including a compiled list of valid, high-quality directories. Disclosure: I have no affiliation with these sites, just tryin' to help.
Jump to Directory ListA word of warning when promoting your startup
Having done quite a bit of research on SEO best-practices before this, I saw a lot of misleading and downright false information online about these directories.
Don’t post to shady directories
Google groups websites like neighborhoods. Wikipedia is a good neighborhood, so if they link to you, Google assumes you are also a good website. If you are linked from a site that contains malware, Google knows you are in a bad neighborhood and punishes your site in their rankings. Many website directories are considered spam that don’t add any value in the eyes of Google, so putting your website on these directories will actually hurt your rankings. KissMetric gives a good definition of a bad neighborhood:
- Bad Links – If you see any links to what is known in the SEO world as negative PPC – pills, porn, or casinos – then get out of that neighborhood ASAP.
- Too Many Links - When it comes to any page on a website, there should be a bigger ratio of content to links. The page shouldn’t be 90% links, 10 % regular content.
- Spam – Sometimes, even though there are not too many links or bad links, there are still pages that have a disproportionate amount of spam on their pages. It may be to seemingly innocent sites, but chances are if no one is moderating the spam, the bad links are bound to come next.
- Over Abundance of Ads – Google, ironically a distributor of ads via their own Adsense system, has been cracking down on sites that are more ads than content. Just like a page shouldn’t be 90% links, it shouldn’t be 90% ads either.
- Poorly Written Content – This one is a little harder to spot, but if you are trying to place content on a site, and you see that the articles are poorly written, then you probably don’t want your content next to it. It’s a sign of sites that may be using “spun” content where someone takes one piece of work and uses software to replace a lot of words to make it seem original.
Don’t use a virtual assistant
Once you start applying to these sites, you’ll realize that most of them ask similar, but slightly different questions. It takes real knowledge of your business to answer these questions accurately and honestly. If you hire a virtual assistant off of ODesk or Elance, they will likely just copy and paste boilerplate answers. It’s very obvious to readers when a description has been C&Ped. Don’t do it. It makes your company look bad and any directory that requires moderation will likely reject your entry. This leads me to my next point...
Don’t copy and paste the same content in every question
Seriously. Again, the goal of this exercise to get featured on as many high-quality websites as possible. These websites don’t accept anyone that applies. Remember, they are businesses too. They want unique, interesting content that their users will be interested in. They too want to be ranked well in the eyes of the search engines, and the Google-gods don’t like duplicate content. Expect to spend 2-3 full days applying to these directories.
What you’ll need to apply to startup directories
In general, here are the things you should prepare before starting this process:
- Startup name, website, location, and social media links
- Logo
- 3-5 screenshots of your startup
- Pitch video (optional, but helps)
- Pitch deck (optional, but helps)
- Founding team (names, bios, and LinkedIn accounts)
- Founding year
- # of Employees
- Information on current funding
- Awards
- Elevator pitch (1-2 sentences, have a few variations)
- Detailed description (1-2 paragraphs, have a few variations )
- Descriptive Tags
- Target customers
- The problem you're solving
- What makes you different from competitors
- Current traction and userbase
Without further ado, here is the comprehensive list of places to promote your startup
The domain authority is a number indicating the strength of a website’s presence on the internet (out of 100). These were taken from Moz’s Open Site Explorer, and I made sure to include only high-authority domains. ‘Nofollow’ in the notes indicates the site will not give you an SEO benefit, but is still good for marketing your site.
The directories are categorized by type. Some directories are only for mobile apps, some are only for sites during beta testing...etc. Click a link below to jump to the category.
- Free, general startup directories
- B2B startup directories
- Paid startup directories
- Beta startup directories
- Mobile app directories
- SaaS startup directories
- Subreddits to post your startup
Free startup directories
B2B startup directories
| Website |
|---|
|
Software Advice |
|
Capterra |
|
Trust Radius |
|
G2 Crowd |
|
App Appeal |
|
Discover Cloud |
|
Startup Resources |
|
Start HQ |
Paid startup directories
| Website |
|---|
|
CSS Mania |
|
Feed My App |
|
Feedback Army |
|
All Top Startups |
|
Erlibird |
|
Startup Lift |
|
Startups |
|
Launch List |
|
Operation 6 Fig |
|
Discova |
|
BizTechXperts |
Beta startup directories
| Website |
|---|
|
BetaList |
|
Museum of Modern Beta |
|
Beta Bound |
|
Beta Page |
Mobile app startup directories
| Website |
|---|
|
App Advice |
|
Apps 400 |
|
State of Tech |
|
Apps Mirror |
|
AppsNow |
|
Apps Listo |
|
Apps Mamma |
|
AppsThunder |
SaaS startup directories
| Website |
|---|
|
Cnet |
|
Get App |
|
Postscapes |
|
CloudShowPlace |
|
MosaicHub |
|
Cloudli.st |
|
SaaSGenius |
|
CrozDesk |
Subreddit startup directories
| Website |
|---|
|
/r/Startups |
|
/r/SmallBusiness |
|
/r/Coupons |
|
/r/DesignCritiques |
|
/r/SideProject |
|
/r/ShamelessPlug |
|
/r/AlphaandBetausers |
|
/r/LadyBusiness |
|
/r/IndieBiz |
|
/r/RoastMyStartup |
|
/r/Entrepreneur |
|
/r/IMadeThis |
Am I missing something?
Comment below and I'll make sure to add it to this list, with credit of course!
Some Other Helpful Resources