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List your site in Directories or
Portals. Why?
By Rob Mcleod Copyright © 2001
Directories and Portals are often good value for money?
Absolutely.
Here is a valuable resource that is often overlooked by website
owners in favor of pay per click (PPC) search engines.
While PPC search engines provide excellent traffic for relevant
keywords (often at high cost), directories and portals have the
ability to provide a steady stream of extremely targeted traffic.
Permanent (Lifetime) listings in some of the better directories/portals
often only cost the price of one weekly ezine ad
(and in some case much less)
In most cases these sites usually don't provide the huge traffic
that pay per click search engines can provide (you usually have
to pay for huge traffic generated by PPC) and certainly won't
guarantee you traffic (not even the big boys will "guarantee"
traffic, read their terms ;-), but your web site will certainly gain extra
exposure.
So what are some other benefits of being listed in paid listing directories?
Here are a few you might like.
1. You don't have to worry about fraudulent click throughs
carving up your advertising costs.
Some web site owners with big advertising budgets spend
literally tens of thousands of dollars per month often
losing a percentage of earnings because of unscrupulous affiliates through
false click throughs, plus there is always debate whether some
PPC search engines themselves use unscrupulous tactics.
(Do some research). On the other hand, with directories
and portals most offer 12 month recuring, some also offer lifetime (permanent) listings.
List yoursite and walk away.
2. Increased traffic from search engines.
Directories and portals are divided into categories and your
site is listed in a category relevant to its content. These
categories are similar to little niche pages; the difference
is they don't generally contain the textual content of a
niche page, instead, containing only links relevant to that
niche.
What does this mean for your site?
You now have yet another link pointing back to your site
from a web page that is relevant to your content.
Search engines like that.
This can give you slightly higher rankings in search engines
increasing traffic to your site. Benefit: You now get extra
traffic from being listed in the directory/portal and the
major search engines favor you slightly more, which in turn
increases search engine traffic to your site. Increased
targeted traffic is always welcome especially when it's at low cost.
3. Quality traffic
Directories and portals generate quality-targeted traffic
producing higher conversion of sales. Quality not quantity,
saving you bandwidth and at the same time convert more visitors
that arrive to your site.
How do I find them?
Major search engines are a good start, although, often you can
sift through many results before finding a good general
directory to list your site in. So dig, there's gold in those
search listings. Often directories themselves will have a
category for directories, follow through with your research
and you will find a few that may suite your needs.
Ok. I'm listed, what now?
IMPORTANT : Keep your listing updated
This extremely important area is often overlooked by the owners
or marketing departments of web sites. Thousands of
businesses are losing thousands of dollars (in some cases per day)
simply because their listings are not up to date.
Many directories have the facility for updating listings, if not
email them and request it. Its worth the small effort, updating
once a month to 2 months should be fine for most
sites/businesses.
The value of the "directory or portal listing" shouldn't be
overlooked when considering an advertising budget.
Some listings yield results immediately, while looking from a
minimumalist perspective, some take a little time before the
results happen. One things for sure "your traffic will be
quality traffic". Its something all web site owners are
looking for.
Use directories/portals in addition to PPC search engines and
reap the benefits of this great online resource.
Are they good long term value?
Absolutely..
Rob Mcleod owns and operates a directory called
Got That Online.com http://www.gotthatonline.com
Got That Online.com is dedicated to providing targeted traffic
for those sites listed in its directory as well as quality listings
for surfers.
Visit it today.
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