Question: Since registering with LookSmart and paying $400 for the link, we have had significantly less enquiries than before we paid for the listing.
We manufacture a woodburning machine, which we have sold throughout Australia and overseas. We feel that we made the wrong decision to pay for the listing and your advice would be appreciated.

Answer: Since LookSmart made the change from having an annual submission fee to a pay-per-click (PPC) model, many Web site owners and search engine marketers began questioning the value of being listed in that directory.

Personally? I like LookSmart and their corresponding free (non-business) directory, Zeal (www.zeal.com). If you take the Zeal test to become a volunteer editor, you can truly see how LookSmart/Zeal editors evaluate a Web site before it is included in their directories.

Additionally, with most directories, it is extremely difficult to get a directory description modified. LookSmart listened to customer complaints about that topic and made it much easier to request modifications.

Now for my professional opinion: before I recommend any type of LookSmart submission, I always research the search engine results pages, also known as SERPs before paying LookSmart’s pay-per-click fee.

Types of Search Engines

Most (SERPs) present information from a variety of search engine resources, usually a human-based search engine, a spider-based search engine, and a pay-per-click search engine.

A human-based search engine, commonly referred to as a directory, uses human editors to manually categorize Web sites or Web pages. Examples of directories include Yahoo!, Open Directory, and Business.com.

Spider-based search engines use special software robots, called spiders or crawlers, to retrieve information from Web pages. Spider-based search engines perform three basic tasks (excerpted from Search Engine Visibility):

1. Spiders find and fetch Web pages, a process called crawling or spidering, and build lists of words and phrases found on each Web page.

2. Search engines keep an index of the words and phrases they find on each Web page they are able to crawl. The part of the search engine that places the Web pages into the database is called an indexer.

3. Search engines then allow end users to search for keywords and keyword phrases found in their indices. Search engines try to match the words typed in a search query with the Web page that is most likely to have the information end users are searching for. This part of the search engine is called the query processor.

The last type of search engine is a pay-for-placement search engine. Sites that pay are guaranteed top placement in the search engine and in its distribution network. Overture, Google AdWords, and FindWhat are examples of pay-for-placement search engines.

Anatomy of a Search Engine Results Page

As I stated previously, most SERPs present information from a variety of search engines. If I am going to recommend a LookSmart purchase to my clients, I am going to test the search engines that use LookSmart on their SERPs in order to see if LookSmart listings dominate.

As an example, I’ll use the U.S.-based MSN Search to illustrate my point.

First, if the site has been around for awhile, I want to know if MSN Search is a big referrer. I can determine this by looking at site statistics software. For medical or healthcare-related sites, I often find that MSN Search is the #1 referring search engine. The reason I want to know about MSN Search is that LookSmart currently provides results at the top of many MSN Search queries.

Second, if I determine MSN Search provides considerable traffic, I then take the site’s top 10 to 25 keyword phrases and query MSN Search. What I am looking for in the SERPs is how much LookSmart listings dominate. The way to determine this is to look for the phrase “Web Directory Sites.”

I know that the “Sponsored Sites” are ads. I know that the “Featured Sites” are also ads or sites that MSN editors felt were particularly useful. And I know that the “Web Pages” come from a spider-based search engine.

Always look at the anatomy of a search engine results page to see if directory submission might be necessary. Just because an ad appears at the very top of a page does not mean that the ad buyer receives more qualified traffic. Plenty of sites receive qualified traffic from positions 6 through 30, often more qualified than sites with higher positions. Remember, the quality of traffic is more important than the quantity of traffic.

When to Purchase the Ad

If I see four or five LookSmart listings in the SERP, consistently, I feel reasonably comfortable that a LookSmart listing might not be necessary because the spider-based results dominate the first three pages. However, if I see that LookSmart listings consistently dominate the first three pages, then I will recommend purchasing placement in the LookSmart directory.

Note: with any directory, payment is for submission review, not for actual placement. The submission fee covers the time and expense it takes for directory editors to evaluate your site, description (not the meta-tag description), and title (not the HTML title). A site might not meet directory guidelines even if you pay the submission fee. In other words, paying a submission fee does not guarantee inclusion into a directory.

Conclusion

I do think it is unusual that the reader found that traffic dropped as a result of purchasing a LookSmart listing. Since LookSmart makes it easy to request a description or title change, I would look into that option first. Directories usually allow between 12 to 25 words in a description. Thus, having your most important keyword phrases in that description is imperative.

Before making any type of search engine purchase, whether it’s a submission fee, pay-per-click advertising, or paid inclusion, always perform queries with your top keyword phrases to evaluate the search engine results pages.

If you have site statistics software (WebTrends, ClickTracks, HitBox, etc.), see which search engines are giving you the most referrals. Perform search queries at these engines.

Lastly, if you can, do a test run at pay-per-click search engines to determine an initial return-on-investment (ROI) because these ads tend to be at the top of search engine results pages. Sometimes, an ad purchase delivers excellent ROI. Sometimes, directory listings deliver better ROI.

Shari Thurow is Marketing Director at Grantastic Designs, Inc., a full-service search engine marketing, web and graphic design firm. This article is excerpted from her book, Search Engine Visibility (http://www.searchenginesbook.com) published in January 2003 by New Riders Publishing Co. Shari can be reached at shari@grantasticdesigns.com.

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