Topical directories. They work!

Just renewed a one year subscription for a topical directory. Payment was confusing so I called and spoke to the owner/webmaster.

Couple of interesting comments.

The directory is the 11th best source of leads for us. (Higher than Jeeves - and we were 1st page for a while - even 1st or 2nd for a period - (or 2nd page after the ads!!))

Of links into the site it is the 4th best source during the past 13 months.

The renewal quoted 25% more hits to the site than our records show. Don't care about his statistics - care about mine.

We've gotten some nice conversion numbers off it. The topical part of it brings in better quality more qualified traffic.

The topicality of the site allows it to show in serps for not only our site for various search phrases but it also shows for other links in the directory for appropriate searches. Many of the links in the site/directory come from affiliate emarketing companies.

Very effective source of traffic and conversions.

Dave

Dave, to me, this nails the reason to have a highly topical directory. It benefits the sites listed and it benefits the owner of the directory. A mish mash of listings does not serve a searcher of a topic very well as it is just to easy to get lost within the structure of an all encompassing web directory. While you or I may have a general understanding of how to move through a directory, the average surfer most likely will not or not want to take the time to search.

I have personally modeled my own directories after this concept - more of a highly targeted Hub - they aren't as pretty as some, but they are indeed highly topical and targeted.

Hopefully we'll see more of these and fewer of the general web directories in the future.

Yes, reminds me of some of the portal-style hubs I'm listed on. I get more traffic from those than - say - dmoz, or any of the lesser (as in: not g/y/m) SEs.

Here in Holland, there's a portal that lots of people use as their browser's home/start page. The subcategories (=subdomains) of that portal are not bad to appear on...

Same with us in our country ... the most popular local portal/search engine brings us more traffic then MSN and Y! together.

From the directory side:

I run a few directories like the new uk one below...

I have one thats 100% Topical and drives a load of traffic to the sites listed...

The top site has had some 4473 in one yr...
People might say "I get that in one hr" but this traffic is 100% themed... No click here for free cheese or whatever...

Directory work....

I personally have listing in some that deliver 200+ visitor per day... Worth every penny in my book....

Are we moving towards a direcotry culture?
I think most people on here have at least one of 2 directorys in their stable.
I notice on so many sigs that there is a link to the persons directory.
Could be due to the revenue that lots of pages and google adsense brings.

For our travel sites we receive more clicks from two topical directories then from any other global directory except of dir.google .

most directories are not great at driving traffic but occassionally you run into a few good ones. the tighter the niche the better usually