Quite honestly, after several months of traffic analysis, I saw that more than 35% of all of my traffic came from Business Directories.

When you consider that one of the single most important things you can do for good search engine placement is to get links to your website, Business Directories have a leg up. Most of them have thousands of back links to them from their subscribers. While this is not as important as specific links from competitors, sheer numbers drive them up in the search engines. When you go to Google or Yahoo and the first three spots are occupied by Business Directories, you can thank in large part, the numbers of back links to them.

Try before you buy.
It’s a good idea to try out a business directory before you buy advertising on their site. Most good business directories will offer a free membership. Take them up on it. Fill out the information and give it time to analyze your traffic and see if you are getting traffic from them. If you are, then it might be worth while to go back to them and see if they offer advertising (of course they will). If their advertising is affordable and within your budget, sign up for the lowest level of advertising that they offer. Then watch your traffic and determine if your traffic went up or stayed the same. In this way, you can make good sound business decisions regarding the advertising dollars you spend and what result you get from them.

Never, Never, Never
Never sign up for any advertising that promises you traffic. One of the single biggest misconceptions regarding the success of a website is the amount of traffic you get. Traffic is only good if it relates to sales. If the traffic you get to your site is not targeted traffic, and if you are paying for that traffic, you’re throwing money away. I would much rather have five visitors a day that are interested in my product than one hundred visitors that were just curious about the advertising heading I was under and came to browse.