Submitting to Directories: A Comprehensive Guide - Directories as traffic source
(Page 4 of 10 )
What is 'targeted traffic'?
As mentioned in the preface, Directories are no longer a primary source of traffic. They are, however, an excellent source of targeted traffic.
Even with the advancement of Search Engine technology, the keyword based search method, common to all search engines, is still far from perfect. That is - many search results do not actually match the user's requirements. Thus, although Search Engines are bound to be higher in the web site logs when counting 'referrals', many of those visitors will NOT become 'customers', as they had a different requirement when they conducted the search. In the SEO terminology, the ratio between customers and visitors is known as the 'conversion rate'. Ideally, a site would aspire to have a conversion rate of 1.0 (every visitor becomes a customer), but this is obviously never achieved.
Thus, it is not enough to simply 'count' the number of visitors. One must also look at the 'conversion rate'. For example, if one source of traffic sends 1000 visitors/day with a conversion rate of 1% and another sends only 100 visitors/day with a conversion rate of 20% - the latter provides TWICE as many 'customers' as the former. We can say that the second source provides better 'targeted traffic'.
As classification is the critical activity and purpose of every Directory, a lot of effort and thought is directed to the creation, maintenance and updates of the category 'tree'. The purpose, obviously, is to provide an intuitive and precise category structure. Are you in any doubt as to the nature of sites found in this DMOZ category?
Top: Games: Role playing: World Building: Created Worlds: Science Fiction
Or the following Gimpsy category?
I want to > Play > games > role playing > Sci-Fi
It is therefore safe to assume that users who trail through either Directory structure will have a very clear idea of what to expect from sites found there. Such matching of content with user expectation guarantees that the conversion rate of visitors from Directories will be significantly better than standard Search Engines.
In summary: Even though Directories provide a far lower level of traffic compared to Search Engines, the quality of that traffic is superior. If 'conversion rate' is a meaningful concept for your site, you would be wise to consider Directories as traffic source.
Next: How to tell which directories are better traffic generators? >>
More Website Submission Articles
More By MC
/ 25 
