I added my site to about 12 premium directories. I had to pay about 500 dollars for that. It did greatly help me get organic traffic from google specially. But I hardly get any traffic from directories itself. Most directory owners say they highly promote their site. If so I am not sure why the traffic from directory itself is so low. May be I am missing something. There are lot of directory owners here, you may tell better.
Much of the traffic from the directory submissions will come from the increased serps that strong links from quality directories help with. The listing in the directory itself will also bring traffic as there are many directories that I get traffic from. The amount of traffic from the directory will vary by site. Stronger directories that are promoted will give you better serp benefits and also tend to be the ones you can also get more direct traffic from.
Exactly what swedal said, i agree. Think about the amount of traffic that even the biggest directories will get, with lots of listings in place in their directory, now imagine trying to send a lot of traffic to all of the sites listed in the directory, its a very difficult thing to do. Because they have sites on hundreds, sometimes thousands of topics, it means that sending traffic back out is not easy. The traffic that a busy directory may receive may sound impressive overall, but spread out accross all those listed topics it will be very thin indeed. Im not knocking anything as i understand its a colossal task, its truely one thing that directories cant do yet, well actually i would make an exception for niche directories, because its much more focused overall. I guess thats why its such a good idea to think niche directories these days, many people are doing that now, with a niche i think it will become a reality to send heavier traffic to the listed sites.
It depends on the quality of traffic you expect. What were the 'premium' directories that you listed in, that would help us better gauge them and what value they may or may not have. Everyone seems to think their directory is premium but in truth most of them are crap.
its interesting how swiftly directories are labelled nowadays So many judges, Directories are evolving perhaps the traffic from the directories will rise
I think bidding directories are for traffic while other directories are for SERPS and few of them uniques.
My two cents. 2yi.net has consistently sent me the most traffic from all the directories I've submitted to. 61 unique visitors from them last month. (And no, this is not a "commercial". I have no tie to them at all.)
In my point of view, there are just some few directories give direct traffic to the listed sites, most of major purposes to submit directory are boost PR.
Not disputing you Jim, and 61 visitors is better than none if they turn to sales. Just proves that some directories actually do send traffic, I know quite a few seo companies are more than happy with what some directories I'm involved return in relation to qualified traffic.
Just to demonstrate the point on it depends on the site. I have two sites listed at 2yi.net and I don't get any recognizable direct traffic. Don't get me wrong it is still a great site to be listed on for other benefits already discussed. I think the direct traffic benefits from a directory depend on how the directory is promoted, the content on it and the traffic it recieves. Things like this determine the kind of traffic that the directory itself attracts and the interests of the visitors to the directory. Those things will determine which kinds of sites will benefit the most from direct traffic from the directory. For example if the majority of traffic to a directory is interested in websites related to pets. Well of course the directory will send more traffic to the listings there related to pets. The advantage that general directories have over niche is that most people are not one dimensional. Meaning that most people have more interests than just in pets or cars or art - you get the idea. So people visiting the directory can find quality resources on many different topics. Sorry I am in kind of a hurry to write this and I don't know if am making sense or not. What I am trying to say is the the direct traffic benefits from a directory will largely depend on the demographics of the traffic they receive. This is information that submitters typically don't know when submitting a site for review. A general directory that is promoting itself well needs to appeal to a broader base than a niche directory. It is more difficult to promote, but when done well will provide better benefits to all the niches within the directory by getting bleed over between them because people are not one dimensional. I think this is a pretty advanced marketing theory for most - like I said I am in a hurry as I have an appointment so I hope this made some kind of sense. But the best traffic benefit from a quality directory listing will come from improved serps.
I have mentioned this before but will state it again. It is simply a numbers game -- even if a directory is getting 500 unique visitors a day (which is very good for a directory and will land them under 100k Alexa usually. If the directory has a couple thousand listings inside. Half those uniques might not make it past the front page, half of that might go just to the submit page and maybe the other half of that will actually find a listing and half of those will click one. So 500/2 = 250, 250/2 = 125, 125/2 actually make it to a listing, so it generates 50-75 clicks a day spread out between a few hundred or a few thousand listings. If you get 15-25 clicks a month from a directory that is very good. If you only paid $10 or $20 for a permanent or even a one year listing you are getting good value for your investment. Of course things can go differently, like Jim stated. He is getting lots of clicks from one directory, perhaps that one is ranking for a search term that is related to Jim's. There are lots of different variables that come into play but as I stated above, even if a directory gets good traffic, the amount of outgoing traffic to one specific site won't ever be that high.
jg123, you're precisely right. My link at 2yi.net is showing up in the Google SERPs at #6, #10, and #12 for three of my important search terms. That is undoubtedly the main reason for the 61 unique visitors I got last month from 2yi.net.
I'm usually reluctant to go too public. But I'll give you one. It's "sermon central". My site currently is #3 and #4 in Google, and my link on 2yi.net is #7 as of this hour. Per WordTracker, that phrase is searched for 277 times a day. So it's reasonably competitive, and 2yi.net's #7 ranking for it, pointing to my site, is sending traffic my way.
One directory I submitted to is really good for traffic; it's given a lot of hits, low bounce rate, and they spend a long time on the site as well as visit plenty of pages.
Can't say that I've really gotten traffic from directories but they are great for increasing SERP's which will lead to organic traffic from google, yahoo, etc.
Because you did Jim, and because the resource Sermon Central looks so good I've put it to the editors in my sig for a free premium review. But now the bad news on my feelings on this, I believe that the only reason you get shown there is that the 'Joint' keyword phrase sermon+central isn't a hugely populated search phrase in Google's database. I always look for the broken (Results 1 - 10 of about 480,000 for key words. (0.23 seconds)) to give me a clue on this. Who is likely to type in sermon central as a keyword search anywhere? The point being is they won't. I'm going to run a test on a theory I ave Jim and use your site as a guinea pig, I'm going to get it added to cantufind.com (If it passes review) and then keep you updated on a theory I have ok. Thanks for sharing the keywords, it showed a level of trust, and as a Christian myself I appreciated that.