Am I doing this right?

Hello,
I'm new to this forum and I'm sure I'll get around to introducing myself sooner or later, but for now I have a question.
I have a website I started some time ago, http://www.nosaintshistory.com. A fansite for the New Orleans Saints, an American Professional football team. It never really did much until last year. I got down with some basic SEO tactics and by season's end it actually got up to a PR4. Right now it's a PR3.
My question is about some directories I'm trying to start up as an effort to give my site some exposure.
I'm only beginning to learn about the directory thing..... just what I've picked up from other web sites and forums..... so I really don't know if I'm going about it the right way.
Being my site is Sports related, I started an NFL and Sports related directory as a sub-directory of my main site http://www.sports-directory.nosaintshistory.com/. But as I began submitting to directories, many asked for a reciprocal link. No problem, I'd be happy to oblige.
But I started to think, "How could I give a recip to a web directory on a Sports Related site?'
So, I got a domain name, and started another directory, http://www.chariswebdirectory.com/ in an effort to be able to give out reciprocal links.
I want to know, "Am I doing this the right way?" Am I missing something or should I go about it a different way?
To be honest, the idea of starting a directory and working on it as an ongoing project does appeal to me, but I remind myself the whole reason I started this mess was to promote my Saints Fansite, and that's the one that's going for me right now.

Well, that`s part of the site promotion process. Have links with other sites. Don`t hesitate to have a reciprocal links to improve your traffics.

Directory submission can help also. Have an offer for a help with a reasonable payment or your links to be build up.

Hope these tips can somehow help you.

Thanks.

Well, as far as my sports directory goes, since it's a sub-directory of my main site, do I need to worry about submitting that to such engines like google or yahoo?
Or will it just be indexed as part of my main site at the next crawl?

Now, Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I've read many times over not to submit to automated submitters.
That they will actual hurt your SEO efforts.
Is that true? What makes these links different?

I don't think it will hurt you, I guess it depends on the auto-submitter, because I would just start signing up all my competitors.

Ok, I think I've gotten off the topic a bit.
The original question pertained to how I was promoting my site, http://www.nosaintshistory.com/.
Will having the sports directory, http://www.sports-directory.nosaintshistory.com/, as a sub-directory help or hurt (or make no difference) in my SEO efforts? Would the PR3 of my main site be automatically ..... "bestowed".... on the directory or should I be treating the sports directory as a separate site altogether, or will it be indexed as part of my main site when search engines crawl it?

Jay_uk

Thanks for the links. If you know of any more decent links please email me s.pole@hotmail.co.uk

Thanks once again

Stephen Pole

[/quote]should I be treating the sports directory as a separate site altogether[/quote]
Yes you should. It is more effective as far as I know

Thanks for the comment Stephen and i'm glad my links came in use!

It seems the moderator has removed the list of useful links I posted. Doesn't matter, at least you got in there just in time

I have posted the list on other Forums which will help quite a few new webmasters, so removing from one forum will not do much harm

I have emailed you another list of useful free web directory links which will help increase your google ranking.

I will not be visiting this Forum again, so good luck with your website Stephen. If you have any questions you can email me, you have my email address.

Takecare

Jay