Listing your membership in directories and marketplaces

Not everyone finds a membership through search engines or social media. Plenty of people look for options in directories: an industry association's list of recommended resources, a roundup of the best communities for a hobby, a local business listing, a marketplace of courses and programs. If your membership is not listed where those people look, you simply do not exist for them.

Listings are also a quiet part of search visibility. A listing on a respected, relevant site can bring visitors directly, help people who search for your name find consistent information, and sometimes provide a useful link to your site. But not every directory is worth your time, and some can do more harm than good. Here is how to choose where to list and how to make each listing work.

The kinds of listings worth considering

Depending on your niche, these types of listings are often worth a look:

• Niche resource directories. Curated lists of tools, courses and communities for a particular hobby or profession.
• Industry and association resource pages. Professional bodies and trade groups often list recommended training or support for their members.
• Local business listings. If your membership has a local element, such as in-person classes or a regional focus, local listings and map results matter.
• Marketplaces for courses and programs. Sites where people browse and buy learning products, usually in exchange for a share of the sale.
• Podcast, newsletter and event directories. If you publish a podcast or newsletter or run public events, list those too.
• Roundups and “best of” lists. Articles recommending communities or resources in your niche, whose authors often accept suggestions.

Choose directories carefully

Before submitting anywhere, ask three questions. Is it relevant to your members? Do real people use it, which you can judge from recent listings, reviews and activity? And does it have editorial standards, or will it list anything for a fee?

Avoid services that promise to submit your site to hundreds of directories, and directories that exist mainly to sell links. Search engines generally ignore such links at best, and a pattern of low-quality links can count against you. One listing on a respected industry site is worth more than a hundred on sites nobody visits.

Marketplaces deserve their own weighing. They can bring customers you would never reach alone, but they usually take a share of each sale, control how you are presented and may keep the customer relationship. Some owners use them for a single entry-level product that leads buyers back to their own site, rather than listing the membership itself.

A good way to find worthwhile listings is to see where competing memberships appear. The free methods in studying competitors' search presence will turn up many of them.

Write a listing that earns the click

Most listings are bland copies of a site's tagline. Treat each one as a tiny sales page. Here is an example for a hypothetical membership for home bakers running small food businesses from their own kitchens, run by Lucia:

Name: The Home Bakery Business Club

Short description: Online membership for home bakers turning a kitchen hobby into a small business.

Full description: Pricing, packaging, labeling and selling for home bakers who sell at markets, from home or online. Members get monthly live workshops, costing and pricing templates, a library of short lessons on everything from packaging to taking orders, and a friendly forum of fellow bakers. Suited to bakers in their first three years of selling. Monthly or annual plans, cancel anytime.

It says who it is for, what members get and who it suits, in plain words someone might search for. Choose the most specific category available, add good images or screenshots where the directory allows, and link to a page that continues the conversation, such as your sales page or a landing page for visitors from that directory.

Keep every listing consistent and current

Inconsistent listings confuse people and search engines alike. Use the same name, description and, for local listings, the same address and contact details everywhere. Keep a simple spreadsheet with each directory, the login, the page address, what the listing says and when you last checked it.

Review your listings a couple of times a year. Prices change, features are added and old offers expire. An outdated listing, especially one showing an old price or a closed program, can cost you trust before a visitor even reaches your site.

Encourage reviews where they matter

On directories and marketplaces that show reviews, a few genuine reviews from members can make a real difference. Ask satisfied members at a natural moment, such as after they reach a milestone, and make it easy by sending the direct link. Never offer rewards in exchange for positive reviews, and never write reviews yourself. Respond politely to every review, including critical ones; future visitors read your replies as closely as the reviews.

Measure what listings bring

Check the referral sources in your analytics every few months to see which listings send visitors, and add each important directory as an option in your “how did you hear about us?” question. Drop the listings that bring nothing, and put more care into the ones that work. Pair this with a well-optimized sales page, following optimizing your membership sales page for search, so visitors who arrive from listings find a page that answers their questions.

Your listing checklist

1. List ten directories, resource pages and roundups where your ideal members look, including where competitors appear.
2. Rule out any that are irrelevant, inactive or selling links.
3. Write a standard listing: name, one-line description and full description.
4. Submit to your top five, choosing specific categories and adding images.
5. Record every listing in a spreadsheet and review them twice a year.
6. Ask a few happy members for reviews, and track which listings bring members.