Manual directory submission: complete benefit to your link popularity
    Within the webmaster community, it is a well-known fact that the best way to submit your site to directories is by manual submission. If you find this hard to believe, then I suggest you check the results  of a survey of website marketers that clearly indicate that a large percentage of individuals prefer to submit manually to search engines rather than use auto-submission tools. The main reason is that manual submission is more effective.

Manual Submission is mandatory for directories
    There are various categorization and sub-categorization of a directory. Individual human editors often review each directory submission and assess the relevance and quality of the site. You can only achieve success when you submit a high quality site to the relevant category. Due to the fact that directory submission if specifically directed to each particular directory, you must submit it by hand. Since automated submission program cannot study the structure of the directory and determine which category is best, it cannot adequately submit to any directory and therefore the need for manual submission.
    Manual submission process is very effective even though it involves numerous steps. It therefore requires patience. The following are some of the steps that are involved:
1.    Conduct some research on search engines and identify those that you want to submit to.
2.    Locate the “Add URL” link on the first search engine.
3.    Enter the URL of your site, your name, and other relevant information required by the search engine.
4.    Repeat the second and third steps for each of the remaining sites.
Here is the secret!
    Since the process requires a lot of repetitive information to be entered, there is need to be extremely careful about typographical errors. The best strategy when submitting manually to several search engines is to consider entering the relevant information into a text file before doing anything else. Copy the entries into the forms of the search engines by using the cut and paste functions in your computer. It may take quite awhile- from several days to months- before your site actually appears in the search engine's database. You may be compelled to submit to search engines numerous times before your site become indexed.

Manual submission may be time consuming, labor intensive and cost effective way of building inbound one way links. It however offers a greater control in the submissions. This helps in building a brand apart from increasing traffic and promotion to your website.