Shopping Directory Submission Articles & Tips
Which shopping directory is right for your business?
Compare and contrast the three major types of shopping directories and make the right choice.
Most shopping directories are Pay Per Click systems that show a list of your products rather than ads for your products. Customers can do a search for the products they want to buy. When they click on your product they end up at your online store. You only pay when the customer clicks on your product. Of course there are free listings too. Read on to find out the similarities and the differences.
Sign-on to a Shopping Directory
The differences between Shopping Directories
Different Shopping Directories for different needs
Sign-on to a Shopping Directory
Signing up for any of the major shopping directories is a pretty simple process. Most of them require you to upload a spreadsheet of your product information. They will need information about the products including its name, model number, brand, a description and a link to a picture of the item on your website. All of this information is displayed for the customer when they do a search.
Types of Shopping Directories
There are three types of shopping directories. There are the fixed click price listings, the bid for position listings, and the free listings. Another name for shopping directories is price comparison services. So one of the important similarities between all of these shopping directory systems is that the pricing is very competitive. If you have competitive pricing, you can make any of these three types of directories work for you.
The differences between Shopping Directories:
- Fixed Click Price: The fixed click price listings are shopping directories like Yahoo!Shopping. Every time someone clicks your product you pay a fixed rate that could range from 10 cents to over a dollar per click. This means that everyone, even your competitors are paying the same click price each time someone clicks.
- Bid for Position: On this type of shopping directory like Shopping.com, you can pay a little more for a better position on the page. When a customer does a search, your online store can appear closer to the top of the page, or you could have your store logo appear. This can get pretty expensive per click, the base price might be 10 cents but if you want to bid for position, you could be paying well over a dollar for each click. The only drawback is that the customer can resort the listings based on price and you could lose your position, if you are not competitively priced.
- Free Listing: There are some free listings out there. The two that I know of are Froogle.com and Pricescan.com. With theses listings you don't have to pay a click price or a sign-on fee. The philosophy is that if the service is free for the online businesses, they are passing on an unbiased list of products to the consumer.
Different Shopping Directories for different needs
With a little research, you can find the right directory for your business. It is important to recognize that some directories cater to different customers and to different types of products. For instance, Pricewatch.com caters to computer and electronics retailers. Another thing to watch out for when making a choice is that some shopping directories like PriceGrabber.com index their products on other shopping directories. If you sign up with them, you product will get much more exposure than with some of the other shopping directories.
If this sound a little complicated, or if it seems like it's too big a job. That's because it is. It is a difficult task to research and submit your website and your entire product listing. You could have it done professionally; take a look at Influence Online Marketing. Read about Influence Online Marketing Shopping Directory Submission Services .
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