Getting listed in a reputed business directory, under a highly relevant classification, is one of the best options for your business. A little history is needed to understand the real significance of business directory listings. So we start with a brief history.

History of Business Publicity

Businesses need publicity. In the offline world, they managed to get publicity through print ads (in the press or distributed as flyers), radio broadcasts and television spots. This kind of publicity was not targeted. It reached all kinds of persons, whether they were interested in your offer or not.

There were, of course, targeted publicity options in trade publications etc. However, these tended to be unaffordable for small businesses.

As more and more buyers got online, a new media for publicity was created. The online media offers several options for the publicity seeker. This media too had the untargeted banner ads option - with the banner appearing on general portals frequented by readers with varying interests.

The online media, however, offered several targeted publicity options. Search engines were one of the first of these. In search engines, readers land on pages relevant to what they are searching for. Though this was the theory, in practice, search engine marketers used many kinds of tricks to make even irrelevant pages show up for unrelated search queries.

Directories Improved Targeting

Directories are human edited. Editors review your website, and ensure that it is described correctly and listed under a correct category. This meant that a reader searching through a directory is more likely to find what the person is looking for. Human editing also meant that junk sites were filtered out.

You could thus expect a better experience with directories, compared to search engines.

A Serious Problem With Directories

There is a catch, however. Humans cannot hope to compete with search engine robots in their speed. While robots can handle millions of pages, humans can probably read a hundred or so pages with sufficient attention to be called a serious review. That means only a limited number of websites would be reviewed and listed in human edited directories.

The solution found by Yahoo Directory, the most reputed of the directories, is to charge a hefty fee US Dollars 300 for reviewing your site. Paying this fee does not mean your site would be accepted for listing. If it is, you have to pay the fee annually to continue the listing.

This meant that many good sites that cannot afford to pay the fee couldn't hope to get into the directory. Yahoo offers a free listing to "non-commercial" sites. However, classifying a site as commercial or otherwise is not always easy.

Other directories too have adopted the practice of charging fees. However, if all fee-paying applicants are included, poor quality sites created in a hurry could soon dominate a directory.

Reputed sites try to guard against this possibility in different ways.

Niche Directories Improve Targeting

Narrower groups use niche directories like a business directory. Antique buyers, for example, could find best results under the Antiques section of a business directory. Business directories often restrict their listings to businesses in a specified region, making it even easier to find sellers near you. Many directories provide a search facility to narrow down the list of businesses displayed.

Listing Your Business in a Business Directory

Select a good directory that has already earned a reputation for quality, and good Google Page Rank and Alexa rating. A listing in such a directory has the additional value of improving your site's link popularity. Search engines consider a listing in a human-reviewed, quality conscious directory as indicative of the value of your site.

You might have to pay for review of your site and inclusion in the directory.

A newer site that shows a promise of quality (look at the sites listed in the directory to assess the directory's quality), and offer free listings, is another good option. However, it could be quite some while before you begin to see any results from the listing.

About the Author:

Daniel French is with www.businessmagnet.co.uk, an award winning directory listing over 70,000 businesses offering over 20,000 products and services. The directory indexes listings by company, town, postcode and product, making it very user-friendly.