Are Enhanced Internet / Web Directory Listings Worth It?

These past few years every print publication that charges for offline directory listings seems to be joining the online directory bandwagon and rightfully so, including private and local government organizations.

Directories are a big thing on the web for businesses because it gives them exposure in an area where they might have little to no exposure at all.  This is akin to placing a billboard in an open desert as apposed to a bustling city where there is significantly more exposure to consumers who are looking for their products or services.  A big plus to consumers is the ability to find business that otherwise may seemingly not have existed at all (on the web.)

There are paid models that charge for the simple things such as logo inclusion, additional categories, he addition few hundred additional words to a business description to the more feature rich and robust feature such as blogs, coupons, newsletters and more. The weight of the search engine result listings remain based on the quality of the directory and the information it provides.  Google has it’s PageRank algorithm, Bing/Yahoo has it’s own.  Either way, the results from some of these directories are seen on the front page of localized search results.

Where can a business find the most return on their investment?  It’s tough to discern the hype from the facts at times and there’s a simple reason why some of these major directories don’t publish flat prices. They also don’t publish meaningful statistics other than their media and sales hype such as “Over 5.2 million hits daily.”  Really?  5.2 million hits?  How many hits are there for queries specifically related to Barbershops in AnyRuralTown Arkansas? Can you get me that specific data for daily, monthly and historical trending that may help me in my decision to upgrade my simple barber shop listing? – Nope, didn’t think so. Any knowledgeable SEO person/team will gather that info from the major search engine tools at hand to weed out fact from fiction rather swiftly, the average business owner will not and will simply sign over a check with hopes of “pie in the sky” returns.

The “Enhanced” directory listings that some sites provide are an attempt to relate to the print advertising model, where the larger the ad, the greater the visibility and exposure over your competitors.  A full/half/quarter page yellow page ad will garner more attention than a standard ad with the company name in bold (or a different color) versus the even more generic listing with no attributes at all. The same can be found in magazines, newspapers and more.  This does not apply to the web to a certain extent as the more places, blogs, articles, newsletters, videos a business can put out – the greater the exposure and quite possibly a greater ROI.

I’m not going to list any directories by name because the search results you can run yourself will reveal who the power players are in your local market.  Turn off your ad-block or use a browser that displays ads for the following test.  Fire up three windows/tabs and run a generic search for your local town for any major/minor niche.  I’ll use barber shops and Phoenix, AZ.   My query in Yahoo, Bing, and Google will be: barber shops in phoenix, az (either broad or phrase match.)

The first page directory based results are: Bing @ 7, Yahoo @10, Google @ 8

There were no business listed organically via their domain except 1 on Google.  Those that appeared by name, did so via directory inclusions – Free/basic directory inclusions. Unless the business had a local business listing published with these search engines, they weren’t even displayed on the top half map. How do I know these are basic/free listings?  Simple, click through and you’ll know whether the site is claimed, user submitted, or contains any of the paid features that that directory offers – very simple. None of the results for my query returned an enhanced listing, aside from the sponsored “ad-words/ad-center/ysm” paid ads.  The results are similar and will become familiar for any localized queries that occur.

Why should a business pay for enhanced listings?  Some directories provide the benefit of being listed in multiple categories, and this works assuming that the consumer is searching for your category directly from that directory’s site. It fails however, in SERPs because the search engines have to decide which single listing from that directory it wants to display on the front.  If there are 50 barber shops in Phoenix, AZ with enhanced results, which one will have the honor or representing thier category on the front page of the SERPs?

There is a benefit to paid results.  If you’ve noticed, for certain niches, the directory will take your PPC funds and sponsor your ad on your behalf in the sponsored links section.  The downside, based on our clients experience and our own, is that there are little to no “negative” words, very little thought put into which keywords will trigger the ad(s), and metrics that are reported are skewed to show false positives. False positive reports include data such as “You’ve received 20,000 impressions, 7k CTR.  What they fail to show you is that 5k of those 7k CTR where for searches that were unrelated to your business.  The proof?  Thankfully there are logs either on the site, google analytics, or other data analysis on the websites themselves that can determine where that user came from that you can match up with your vague directory reports.  A user on bittorrent is not looking for a barber shop (well, maybe the movie) and there certainly is no reason for your ad to be triggered by a torrent query or even by a user seeking shoes, bonzai tree, chia pets,transformers, erectile dysfunction, etc . Why should any business pay for an mismanaged PPC/CPC campaign that’s unrelated, untargeted, and malformed.  It’s not the local business’ fault, simply don’t know any better. I’m not a mechanic, so I don’t know if I’m getting hosed when I go in for a tune up and I’m offered an oil flush, transmission purge and coolant recirculation – although I now have my suspicions. *sigh* I digress.

Simply put, the tracking data that we’ve gathered over the last 9 months show that a simple free inclusion to the popular local directories that produce results for your related niche business is simply good enough.  Enhanced listings only go to feed the directories themselves, and only benefit the business if the directory is popular enough to warrant enough users that are searching for their business related services.  By the way, no paid directory service has provide the data to prove how/why a local nail salon or barber shop will benefit from a $299 per month premium listing.  The search engine results speak for themselves and until there is data released that justifies spending an exorbitant amount of money for results that can be obtained for free, there simply is no reason for enhanced listings unless it’s part of some business strategy, but then how may different blogs can a business maintain anyway?

On a side note: If your business listing doesn’t have a link to your website, you are not likely to convert that customer based on a directory listing alone.

Obligatory Company Plug:  For strategically placed and results oriented business directory listings, check out our Internet Business Listing service.

Tagged as: Business Directories