Many clients, particularly in the tourism, hospitality and real estate industries are constantly being approached by directories asking for subscription fees.  Some are only a few hundred dollars a year, while others are thousands.  In many cases people pay these directory listing fees simply because all their competitors are listed, or because the directory is well established and well known.

Directory listings are an important component of search engine marketing as the links you gain back to your site help reinforce the credibility of your own site to search engines such as Google.  However, most directories that charge a listing fee do it because they promise to send you volumes of targeted visitors who will convert into sales.  In some cases the money is well spent and the directory may be heavily promoted to a targeted audience, and may be in print and other formats as well. However, as with all marketing spend you need to be able to measure the return and compare the investment to other options you are spending on (or could be spending on).

Two keys statistics to look at when reviewing the return from paid directories are volume of traffic, and more importantly the quality of the visitors being sent to your site.

Traffic volume, as measured by unique visitors is the obvious one.  The directory might be found in the search engines, or be promoted in other media, but traffic numbers do not tell the whole story. A directory may be able to send you lots of visitors, but they need to be targeted. It is no use to a five-star hotel getting lots of backpackers sent to their web site, or for a domestic retail chain in California getting loads of traffic coming from England. Traffic stats can show pure numbers but they can't show quality.

This is where bounce rate is important. Bounce rate helps you assess the quality of the visitors you are getting.  It is the measure of how many visitors only look at the page of your website they arrive on before leaving. It infers that visitors who look at just one page of your site and leave are not quality and not your right targeted audience, because they obviously assessed your website and decided it was not what they were looking for. If a visitor arrives at your web site and looks at more than one page then they obviously are interested and are therefore a potential lead. A bounce rate of between 15% and 25% is often seen as a good target.  It is very hard to give a general rule as all industries and audiences are different.

So when assessing which paid directories are worthwhile simply follow these steps:

1 Using Google Analytics or whichever web stats package is set for your website (as long as it gives you the required data), set the date range for the previous twelve months, or a shorter period if needed.

2 View the Traffic Sources report, or in other stats packages it may be called Referral Sites or Referrals.

3 In the far right column of the Google Analytics table view the Bounce Rate listed for each traffic source.

4 Compare the Visits number and Bounce Rate of the various directories you are paying for. If two directories cost $1000 each a year you can see which one is sending the better quality visitors that are more targeted to your site. You may decide to cut your spend in one and boost your listing in the other. You will also be in a better position to discuss the results with the sales representative who calls to get you to renew your listing.

If you have never listed with the paid directory before then ask if you can do a trial for a short period of time and then monitor your web site statistics and enquiries to see if there has been a positive impact.

The point is that you can and should measure what you are getting from each directory for your marketing spend. Don't trust the stats that the sales people give you about the numbers of visitors their directory has sent to your website. Trust your own web site statistics and look at the quality of the visitors as well as just the volume. In this way you will make better use of your marketing spend and find that your web site conversion rate should improve.