Somewhere down the line, business directories turned from a tool for discovery into just another item on an SEO to-do list. Twenty directory submissions mean twenty backlinks. Done. I understand the appeal. Backlinks are valuable, and directories are an easy way to get a bunch at once, but if you're thinking of directory listings as nothing more than backlinks, you're not getting nearly as much value as you could.

I've seen this conversation play out more times than I can count. An owner signs up for a listing, thinks about it maybe once or twice over the course of a year, then comes to me asking why it didn't do anything for them. Of course it didn't, it was treated like a backlink and the value of a directory listing as a storefront is never going to show up in an SEO audit, even though it absolutely should.

The Backlink Is the Byproduct, Not the Point

There's a difference between getting a backlink and getting a customer. A backlink from a directory is nice, it will nudge your domain authority up a touch, but a directory listing that generates customers will do a lot more for your SEO than just that.

The businesses that are able to reap the rewards of directory listings aren't thinking about the Googlebot, they're thinking about the person on the other end of the search, the one comparing plumbers or accountants and looking for reasons to choose one over the other, the one who has already decided they need a service and is looking to make an educated decision about which provider gets their business.

If you're tailoring your listing for the Googlebot, you're shooting yourself in the foot. Both the Googlebot and the customer need to find value in your listing and while it is possible to satisfy both, satisfying the customer first is significantly more difficult, which is why so many fail at it.

What "More Than a Backlink" Looks Like in Real Life

There are two similar florists listed on the same directory. One has a name, address, and category. The other has photos of arrangements they've made (including a few slightly less flattering ones that somehow look more authentic), a description that reads like it came from the owner, five recent reviews they've responded to individually, and updated hours for the week leading up to Valentine's Day.

Which one will get a call at 9pm from someone frantically searching for a flower shop because they forgot their anniversary?

It's easy to mistake comprehensiveness for optimization, but in reality, it's completeness that will get you results from directory listings, because that's what a harried customer is going to be looking for when they're searching late at night.

Trust Compounds in Ways You Don't Expect

Directories, when done right, have this interesting side benefit where they begin to feed into each other. A customer who finds you on Google, then again on a local chamber of commerce directory, then once more on an industry-specific directory with positive reviews across the board, isn't going to be thinking about how you're marketing to them when they make the decision to choose your business. They're much more likely to think that you're a trustworthy option, based on the fact that they saw you in multiple places advertising similar things.

This is one reason directories continue to have value despite the rise of other advertising mediums, because you can't fake that kind of consistency across platforms, especially as quickly as many advertisers might want to launch a campaign. A directory listing that has existed for years, been maintained in the intervening time, and has positive reviews will always look more trustworthy to a customer than a brand new ad campaign on a social media platform with no history and no track record. Even more, the appearance of that consistency and quality across multiple directories will give a business an extra boost, because that kind of ubiquity in listings suggests that the company is trustworthy enough to be found everywhere.

This is a huge boon to anyone using directories as a discovery tool, because even as other traditional advertising avenues dry up, they're still seeing consistent results, both in terms of customers generated directly from the directory and in terms of SEO value.

Where People Miss Opportunities with Directories

It's very common to see people trying to get as much value as they can from directories by sending the same listing to fifty different sites, and then forgetting about it after the initial setup. This is understandable, in a way. That approach tends to yield decent short-term results. The value that comes from long-term maintenance, however, is significantly greater and far too few people are doing it.

A better approach is to pick a few directories that your target audience is actually going to see, then give those listings the attention and maintenance they need to thrive over the long term. A B2B supplier is going to have much better luck investing time in a single listing on a relevant trade association site than they ever would in a directory listing that no member of their target audience is likely to see, no matter how many listings they submit. A local bakery is going to see much better results from a complete and well-maintained Google Business listing than they ever would from a directory listing service promising to get them 500 backlinks in 24 hours (a promise that, if it sounds suspicious to you, almost certainly is).

All of that to say, the value of a directory listing as an SEO tool is definitely there, but it shows up over time instead of right away. It's very rare that a listing produces immediate results, because there needs to be enough content on the page for both the Googlebot and the customer to find value in the listing. When that happens, the value to the business can come in many different ways. As time passes, directory listings that have value to the customer can see huge spikes in SEO value, either through increased rankings due to the increased content or through referral traffic and backlinks from other sites picking up on the listing.

That doesn't mean that SEO isn't a factor, it just isn't the starting point, as it would be for virtually any other type of SEO campaign. If you're treating your directory listing as another vehicle for keyword stuffing and are optimizing it first and foremost for the Googlebot, you're going to see results, just much slower ones and with significantly less long-term domain authority.

A Word About Consistency Over Time

One final point about consistency, as it applies to directory listings.

I'm always seeing people try to get everything set up at once, then forget about it. It's the same principle as the old quote about not abandoning your children after birth, only on a much smaller scale. A directory listing that gets forgotten about very rarely looks good, unless you have somebody who can dedicate time to maintaining it. The florist who made a great listing at the beginning of the year isn't going to have that same great listing six months later if nobody is updating it. A picture of a rose arrangement from last October isn't going to have the same impact that a similar picture from this past Tuesday would have. If nobody bothered to respond to the angry customer from February, the negative review isn't suddenly going to disappear, and the listing isn't going to look any less professional. Even the most basic maintenance on a listing can make a huge difference to the listing's appearance and to the customer's experience.

That's really the value of directory maintenance, both as it applies to the customer experience and to the SEO value of the listing. If you're using directories as a means of driving traffic to your site, the maintenance keeps the listing attractive and up-to-date so that customers will want to use it, which in turn drives traffic to your other sites. If you're trying to use the directory listing as a place for SEO value, the maintenance makes sure that the Googlebot sees the listing as fresh, which will improve your rankings and visibility in the search results.

It might not sound exciting, but it's that consistency, over time, that builds the trust with both your customers and with Google that is the real reason for the value of directories. It's an investment, one that pays off much later, but one that is well worth the time and effort it takes.

In a sense, that's the whole point of this article. If you're going to do a directory listing, do it like someone who wants their friend to refer their customers to them rather than like some sort of SEO robot throwing out a thousand backlinks at once. Write a description that makes someone want to call you instead of listing out a series of keywords. Think about the potential customer and what they're looking for, the reasons they might want to choose you. Make your listing look like a real storefront, not a SEO cheat sheet. All of that is going to help, but it's really the consistency that matters. Do it right across the few directories you choose and you're going to start seeing the SEO rewards of that consistency show up, including the kinds of backlinks and traffic that would have taken much longer to appear otherwise.