Gaining exposure for your blog is critical to building a following and revenue.

After creating compelling copy, titles, descriptions and link strategies, it?s time to list your blog in one or more directories.

There are many paths to building links, some black hat and likely to get you penalized by search engines such as link baiting or blogroll-link swapping, but few are as easy to implement and cost effective as submitting to blog directories. And they create a bit of good link juice makes for a growing blog.

Here are 12 directories you need to know about:

1. Best of the Web Blog Search remains
a powerful tool for sharing your blog, especially since this director?s very selective, listing only mature and valuable blogs. A link from here is majestic.

2. EatonWeb Blog Directory is a powerful list. The fee, currently $34.99, pays for a review of your blog.

3. OnToplist.com is a free, manually-edited directory that reads the RSS feed of your blog. You can also use the site?s social features, article directory, and other great tools to build your blog.

4. While the design and infrastructure have changed somewhat over the years, Blog Search Engine remains one of the most selective blog directories on the web. Membership has its privileges.

5. Bloggernity is a crisp, clean and easily navigated site. It?s low ad-to-content ratio has helped solidify its reputation as a quality directory.

6. Bloggapedia has an interesting and eye-catching homepage. Readers are easily connected to top blogs and new posts. Innovative categories, a colorful design and its blogger tool kit make this directory a hit.

7. Spillbean is a well-designed directory with categories such as ?health,? ?society,? ?Internet,? and ?personal.?

8. Blogging Fusion boasts over 60 categories, including family-focused blogs. Blogging Fusion has an good number of listings, and it also has visitor stats.

9. Blogflux is organized and clear with a strong social element.

10. The blogs at the top of Bloglisting are fun, colorful and catch the attention of the reader. Bloglisting displays the page-ranking blogs, which is a helpful tool when determining with whom you want to exchange links.

11. Blogarama has a strong base of blogs and a solid text-ad system for its front page.

12. Blog Hints features over 100 categories. The site is very picky about which blogs are included, and those that are listed are presented via a visual interface that shows the site?s design and page rank. This makes Blog Hints the perfect site for finding link-swapping partners.

The above listings are a glimpse inside the large and vast world of blog directories and the valuable inbound links that your can build for your blog and your business.

There are many more blog directories at your disposal with a bit of Googling. Which do you like? Leave a comment.