Many online business directories offer a free service and a premium service. A premium service often known as a premium listing give’s your business more prominent exposure on the web and receives top priority over free listings in any business directory search results.

When marketing and advertising your business online using premium business directories, ensure that you do some research first into the business directory itself before busting your advertising and marketing budget.

Here are five things to look for.

Alexa Traffic Ranking

Checking the Alexa traffic ranking of the site directory will give you an indication of how much traffic that site is receiving, as well as other information such as type of visitors, visitor demographics etc.

Number of Backlinks

You can use online tools such as Yahoo Site Explorer to check the number of backlinks to the directory site before paying for a premium listing. The higher number of backlinks would suggest the directory site is well established.

Category Saturation

Check out the category in which you want your business listing to appear in. See if the category or categories you’re interested in are over saturated with similar listings. If there are too many premium listings to complete with then reconsider.

Google Page Rank

Checking the directory site’s Google page rank is also a good indication how long the site has been established for.

Features

Finally check out the features and benefits being offered in exchange for your money. A good premium service provider should offer your business a comprehensive listing packed with features, including several deep links, social media tools and settings, website settings, Google Maps, plus much more.