My Experience With Directories
Back when I got started in 2007 literally every SEO by default would start getting back links to their new website with directories. Usually every one they could find just to get back-links. At one point I remember having a list of over 2000 directories.
Nobody really did it to get traffic back to their sites. I've setup several thousand websites since 2008. On literally every website I've submitted to hundreds of directories and received hundreds or thousands of back-links for each. I think I've gotten about 1000 visitors out of all of that! lmao. And I made sure they were in niche related directories.
So clearly they are nearly worthless to generate traffic directly.
I actually setup a business directory myself and ran it for 3 years before shutting it down. Its not the best business model imo. You are either the top 1-3 or websites in that market or you are nothing really. They are difficult to monetise. Usually most make their money via getting others to pay for a listing. If you are getting organic traffic then monetizing it with display ads usually adsense is best. There were other services i tried offering like additional seo for their websites like reputation management, lead generation and getting them ranked which did ok.
The amount of effort and time I invested though to maintain the websites vs the returns weren't good enough when compared to other websites i owned. I did make some money from it just not a lot.
So What Are Directories Good For Then?
Most don't have any organic traffic or very little. Yelp is an example of one that is worth getting into if your a local business. Yelp for local business is usually worth it to get into. Any directory that is getting organic traffic/search engine traffic to you is worth it. But if they do not then there is little to no value in getting into their directory.
If your just a website or blog that isn't targeting local traffic then you won't get any or very little website traffic. The general website directories or blog directories I'm referring to which aren't focused on local traffic get very little organic rankings and so very little organic traffic.
So in most cases they are only good for back-links for SEO! All the backlinks don't all have to be do-follow because that just looks spammy. It likely still looks good to Google because it can show relevancy to the niche you are in.
These days my plan for regular website or blogs is much simper and all I do is focus on
1)the biggest 5-10 directories with no-follow
2)top 10-50 directories with do-follow links- you could expand the do-follow list but make sure they are good directories and not full of spammy garbage. That will likely hurt you more than help you.
So in total maybe 60 links at most. What I liked about this though is that you only have to do it once and then its done and you move on to other things.
Are Paid Directories Worth It?
Some of them you have to pay for like the MOZ directory. I really dont think that its worth paying for imo. I paid for a backlink for there before for a previous local business site and still got no traffic from it. So it was really only useful for SEO reasons as well. It depends on your budget really. If you have the money then they are good back-links but are they necessary? No
When considering a directory to get a link from what should you look for?
1) DA( domain authority) ranking? You generally want 30 or higher.
2) spam score( how their back-link profile looks) and how spammy does it look in general?
3)Are the links do -follow or no-follow?
4) What amount of organic traffic they are getting?
5) Are they niche relevant?
If you cannot find any directories for you niche then don't worry about it. Plenty of other place sot get back-links from
Tips for local directories
-If you businesses that has been approached by a directory company to get listed or are just interested in getting into one because you think it might help you get more customers but you don't know anything about SEO. Then just sign up and monitor it. They should be able to show you the # of visitors to your profile per month in the directory and try to track the phone calls and emails you get via that directory. If they cant get you any customers in 3-6 months then its likely they never will get you customers.
-you may be better off setting up your own website and promoting that.
-The only other issue you should take into account is your market that you are, Some are very crowded with lots of competition. Your directory may be getting search traffic but you aren't getting any. Why? Because they are clicking on your competitions profile rather than yours. In that situation You need to find a way to stand out from the crowd.
In Conclusion
So in conclusion I would so yes they are worth it to get some back-links and possible traffic because you only need to do it once then its still worth going for it for right now. If your a local business then only focus on the ones a that can bring you customers/traffic. In order to do that they need to have organic rankings for search terms related to your business.