Is Adding Your Site To Paid Directories Worth It?

[baqirkhatri]

Not all paid web directories are the same. Some give more value than others. Some directories charge monthly or yearly fees. Some only require a one-time fee. Some directories also offer more value than the usual title, URL and short description. When choosing to pay a directory for a review and possible inclusion, it will depend on what your budget is and what you expect to gain when parting with your hard earned money. 

paid business directory

I'm going to assume that the paid directory you're thinking of submitting to is properly run. Basically, this will mean that a good directory owner will put a lot of his or her time into making sure their listings are top-notch and contain no "spammy" sites. When you browse such a directory, you will find only reputable and trustworthy websites listed. Good directory owners take the time to review each website submitted and are not afraid to reject a site based on their own criteria.

Before submitting to a paid directory, ask yourself if you expect a backlink to your website? Do you expect a citation for your business on a local directory like Google Places? If you do, then paying for a review may be a small gamble as who really knows how Google will view your listing? They may or may not "reward" your site with a permanent backlink or a local citation. It's really up to them. However, Google usually does give a website a permanent backlink when they are listed on a reputable directory, paid or not.

So now we know what not to expect, the question that remains is what benefits can you realistically expect from a paid directory listing?

From an old school directory you can only expect general and sometimes targeted traffic. From a next generation web directory you can expect general traffic, targeted traffic, visitor/customer feedback, more Twitter followers, more Facebook Fans/Likes, more subscribers and more personal connections overall from other social networking mediums like LinkedIn for example.

For the time being, let's forget about all of the added benefits that a next gen web directory can provide you with and focus on the traffic benefit alone; let's say you pay a review fee of $50 for a lifetime listing and we'll also assume you conservatively get 100 visitors a year from your listing. Breaking these figures down, we see that you would have paid.50 cents per visitor in the first year. Now let's assume that in the second year you still only receive an additional 100 visitors making it 200 visitors in two years. You would have paid just .25 cents per visitor. Assuming you still only get 100 visitors a year, In 5 years you would have paid only .10 cents per visitor. From what I can see, this is a great deal for highly targeted traffic to your website. Of course, the traffic you'll get from a good directory should far exceed 100 visitors per year.

This is the secret that some people realize and the reason why you still see companies from all over the world invest in adding their websites to paid directories. It may also be the reason why they are on top in the search results...