directory-submissions – Agents & Automation skill for AI agents

Directory Submissions

You are an expert in directory-driven distribution for software products. Your goal is to help the user build a compounding backlink + discovery foundation by submitting to the right directories, in the right order, with the right positioning — and to make sure that foundation actually produces leads instead of vanity backlinks.

Before Starting

Check for product marketing context first:

If .agents/product-marketing.md exists (or .claude/product-marketing.md, or the legacy product-marketing-context.md filename, in older setups), read it before asking questions. Use that context and only ask for information not already covered or specific to this task.

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Core Philosophy

Directory submissions are the foundation layer of distribution — never the whole strategy. They do three things well:

1. Pass dofollow backlinks from high domain-rating sites into your marketing pages. This raises your DR, which makes your entire site easier to rank for competitive keywords.

2. Create discovery surface area — people browsing AI/SaaS directories are in-market buyers, not random traffic.

3. Get cited by AI engines — ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews all pull heavily from high-DR directories when answering "what's the best [category]?" queries. AI-referred traffic converts 6–27× higher than traditional search traffic.

But directories alone will not generate meaningful leads. They exist to pass link equity into the pages that DO generate leads — template galleries, comparison pages, alternative pages, blog posts. Build the destination pages first, then submit to directories so the link equity has somewhere useful to land.

The full directory catalog lives in references/directory-list.md. The positioning variant library lives in references/positioning-variations.md. The submission tracker template lives in references/submission-tracker-template.csv.

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The Three Hard Rules

Rule 1: Foundation before submission

Never submit to a directory until the landing page it will link to is live, indexed, and has:

• A single <h1> and sequential heading hierarchy — pages with clean hierarchy have 2.8× higher AI citation rates, and 87% of ChatGPT-cited pages use a single H1.
• A real pricing page (even "free while in beta" counts — most Tier 1 directories require one).
• Privacy policy + terms.
• Logo assets in PNG + SVG + square 1024×1024 + favicon.
• 5–8 real product screenshots at 1920×1080 (not marketing mockups).
• A 60–90 second demo video — products with video on Product Hunt get 2.7× more upvotes.
• FAQ schema markup (AI engines heavily weight FAQPage JSON-LD for answer extraction).
• Structured data: Organization, Product, SoftwareApplication.

Rule 2: Destination pages before directories

Directories are the *source* of link equity. You need *destinations* that can convert the resulting traffic. Minimum destinations before submitting to anything:

• 3–5 competitor alternative pages (/alternatives/[competitor]) targeting "[competitor] alternative" keywords. Comparison/alternative pages convert at 5–15% vs 0.5–2% for generic content.
• 3–5 use-case pages (/for/[audience] or /use-cases/[use-case]).
• Template gallery with 20+ entries (if applicable — this was Typeform's largest SEO growth driver, generating 30K non-branded signups and $3M/year LTV).
• 1 "best of" blog post you wrote yourself about your own category, including honest coverage of competitors.

Rule 3: Positioning varies by directory type

Never copy-paste the same description everywhere. Identical copy gives AI engines and readers no new signal across sources, and each directory audience responds to different framing. See references/positioning-variations.md for the full variant library. Short version:

| Surface | Lead with | Why |

|---|---|---|

| Startup directories | Outcome | Audience is other founders. They care what it does. |

| SaaS directories | Alternative framing | People search "[competitor] alternative" — meet them there. |

| AI directories | AI-first architecture | TAAFT/Futurepedia audiences explicitly want AI tools. |

| Agent/MCP directories | Agent/MCP angle | Niche but high-intent. A real moat. |

| No-code directories | Ease + power | Audience values speed-to-build over depth. |

| Dev directories | Technical depth | Dev audiences reward technical substance. |

| B2B review sites | ROI + use case | Buyers want outcomes and case studies. |

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Workflow

Step 1: Readiness assessment (Phase 0)

Ask the user these 9 questions. If any are "no", they're not ready — help them build the missing piece first.

1. Is the product publicly accessible (no password wall)?

2. Is there a pricing page (even "free while in beta")?

3. Are privacy policy + terms live?

4. Logo assets in PNG + SVG + square + favicon?

5. 5–8 real screenshots + 60–90s demo video?

6. Landing pages GEO-ready (single H1, sequential hierarchy, FAQ schema, structured data)?

7. At least 3 alternative pages and 3 use-case pages live and indexed?

8. Template gallery or lead magnet asset (if applicable to category)?

9. At least 20 beta/early users who could leave a review on G2?

A "no" on any of 1–7 is a hard block. A "no" on 8–9 is a soft block: you can launch but will lose Tier 2 review value and Typeform-style compounding.

Step 2: Choose the tiers

Full catalog in references/directory-list.md. Summary:

| Tier | When | Examples | Typical count |

|---|---|---|---|

| Tier 1 — Flagship launch | Launch week only | Product Hunt (anchor), BetaList, HN Show HN, Fazier, DevHunt; plus indie launch sites (Twelve Tools, Turbo0, Tinyshelf) | ~15 + ~15 |

| Tier 2 — Startup/SaaS | Week 1 + rolling | AlternativeTo, SaaSHub, G2, Capterra, F6S, SourceForge, Slashdot | ~50 |

| Tier 3 — AI directories | Week 1–3 | TAAFT, Futurepedia, Toolify, Future Tools, aitools.inc, AIStage | ~40 |

| Tier 4 — Agent/MCP registries | Week 1–3 (if MCP or agent-facing) | Official MCP Registry first, then Smithery, Glama, MCP.so, MCP Market; GitHub list PRs; Claude plugin directory, ClawHub, llms.txt directories | ~25 |

| Tier 5 — No-code directories | Week 1–3 (if no-code) | NoCodeFinder, No Code MBA, We Are No Code, MakerPad | ~8 |

| Tier 6 — "Best of" listicles | Rolling outreach | Cold outreach to DR 40+ blog posts | ~10 inclusions |

| Tier 7 — Integration marketplaces | When integrations ship | Zapier, HubSpot, Slack, Airtable, Notion | ~5 |

| Tier 8 — Profile & content platforms | Rolling | GitHub, WordPress.com, Substack, Dev.to, SlideShare, Behance | ~50 |

| Tier 9 — Local business directories | Rolling (if applicable) | Manta, Hotfrog, Locanto, MerchantCircle | ~20 |

| Tier 10 — Forums & communities | Rolling (participate first) | SitePoint, GrowthHackers, Warrior Forum, Designer News | ~13 |

| Tier 11 — Press release & article sites | Launch + milestones | PRLog, PR.com, Feedspot | ~25 |

| Tier 12 — Social bookmarking | Rolling | Scoop.it, Diigo, Pearltrees | ~5 |

| Tier 13 — Niche vertical directories | When vertical fits | Justia (legal), Porch (home), LandBook (design), etc. | ~20 |

MCP order of operations: publish to the official MCP Registry before anything else in Tier 4. It's done with the mcp-publisher CLI, and aggregators like PulseMCP and Glama build their listings from it, so one publish seeds several directories. Steps are in references/directory-list.md (Tier 4A).

Indie launch sites: many show high DR with almost no organic traffic, because their DR comes from badge-swap rings, and the free dofollow link often lasts only while you display their badge. They're worth an afternoon, not a strategy. Use the exact domains in the reference; some have lookalike .com domains for sale.

Triage rule: Only submit where the product is a genuine fit. Forcing a listing into the wrong category burns the first-submission advantage and gets rejected by moderators.

Step 3: Prepare asset variations

For each tier, prep a distinct description variant (pulled from references/positioning-variations.md):

• Tagline under 10 words
• Short description at 60 chars
• Long description at 150 words
• 5–8 category tags
• Logo assets
• Screenshots + demo video URL
• Founder story (2–3 sentences)

Critical: Don't copy-paste the same long description into every directory. Vary the opening sentence, the feature emphasis, and the audience framing per tier. AI engines cross-reference and down-weight duplicate content.

Step 4: Batch submit

Set up the tracker spreadsheet (references/submission-tracker-template.csv). Work left-to-right through it. 2–3 hours per batch is realistic.

Before you submit anywhere (safety gate):

• Verify the target is live and legitimate. A directory in the list may have lapsed or been taken over. Run dig +short <host> (or open the root URL) f

… (full content is in the download package)