Making Appropriate Use Of Online Directories

Have you been submitting details of your business to relevant directories? If not, there is a lot of value to be found in doing so. Some people tend to think about online directories as being all about the SEO benefits that are associated with them. While it's true that there are such benefits, there's plenty more to investigate.

Concentrating on SEO, it's clear that one reason why many companies make use of such directories is because they view them as being a good source of links. This can be the case, but only when they're used properly.

There are plenty of web directories that should pretty much be ignored, for a number of reasons. You can usually spot these because they tend to have a lot of pending links. In effect, these are submissions that the editors of the directory have not managed to deal with as yet.

If the editors aren't making an effort to look at submissions, then you could have a very long wait before you receive your desired link! But what about directories that automatically approve every single submission? In many ways, these are just as bad.

The problem with an automated approach is that you can end up with a situation where the entire directory structure is cluttered with poor quality websites. You may well have seen such sites.

So you should be looking for high quality locations, where the directories are human-edited and updated at regular intervals. You may be able to get some pointers by looking at the sort of places where your competitors have successfully made submissions.

Think carefully about the categories that you use too. These should reflect your business and the services that you offer. Don't be tempted to submit to another category, simply because you suspect that it may help to drive more traffic, or offer additional SEO benefits.

It's also best to take an honest approach. Don't forget that you are also aiming to attract new customers from your directory listings. This means that you should take good care over your entry, ensuring that it positively reflects your business.

Directory submissions can certainly be a useful online marketing tool, but it's clear that they work best when you use them properly. Think carefully about your submissions if you want to benefit from the full power of these directories.

As ever with online marketing, you tend to get results based upon the amount of effort that you put in.



Learn more about how a business directory can help your online marketing efforts, as discussed by Simon Barnett. This article may be used by any website publisher, though this resource box must always be included in full.