There is a plethora of web design directories out there to help you gain exposure for your web development business. Here’s a roundup of the ones I’m listed with.

Do you know of other directories or websites that drive high-quality traffic and leads for freelance web developers and programmers? Please leave your comment below…

DesignFirms.org

DesignFirms.org ranks well for several web related searches in google as well and is run by my friend Scott Seiter of Cider Media fame. The sign up process was simple and after clicking a simple verification link sent via email my listing was live. They don’t require a link back to their site to be listed but they do have an algorithm to send more traffic to your site if you send them traffic.

My listing was easy to find in the Chicago Web Development section immediately after being listed. There may be a decent organic search boost from this one. Time will tell.

Check out my profile on DesignFirms.org

Haystack

This one is run by the folks at 37signals. I like the interface because it doesn’t try to do too much; just my name, description, screenshot and link to my site. As an end user I would enjoy using this site to find a web developer. Other sites try to get me to add a short description, detailed description, my resume, my portfolio, and on and on… It’s too much. I already have all that stuff on my own site. I’ll let my site do my marketing for me, thank you very much! Haystack gets a thumbs up for keeping it simple.

Since a lot their results are loaded via AJAX it doesn’t look like there’s much of a chance I’ll get a boost in organic search results from this listing. At least they don’t put a nofollow on the link to my site.

Check out my profile on Haystack

Top Design Firms

This is another easy to use directory of design firms. It’s pretty easy to browse the site and find web companies by city or state. Most of their city level pages have a PR 4 so maybe some link juice will come my way (update, they link back with a redirect script. link juice for me). They also have a contact form so prospects can contact me directly from the site.

Check out my profile on topdesignfirms.com

DesignDir.net

DesignDir.net has been around since 2003. At the time of this posting designdir.net ranked #6 on a Google search for web design directories. Hard to say if I’ll get an organic search boost from this one. Their homepage was a PR3 and none of their internal pages for free listings had any PR at all. I submitted my site to the freelance programmers section since there were only 3 listings there at the time.

They required a link back to their site for a free listing, so here it is.

Web Design Directory

DesignDir.net is an industry leading web design and development directory. We bring together the best designers and their customers.

Guru.com

Holy crap was this one overwhelming! A complete profile on Guru.com includes your resume, work samples, minimum rate, minimum project budget, industries you serve and more. Guru is a little different than other directories though. It provides a one stop marketplace for service seekers to post projects, get quotes, compare and hire service providers of all sorts of services.

Check out my profile on Guru.com

Conclusion

There are many facets to marketing your web development business and getting listed in these directories is just a small part of that. This post completely ignores social media marketing, networking and just plain ol’ building a good reputation to gain word-of-mouth. More on these tactics later.

That’s all for now. I just signed up for these today so as time goes on I’ll update this post with my thoughts on how much traffic I get from them, quality of leads etc.

Cheers!