How many times have you been approached about buying a listing in an online senior living / retirement community directory? These digital directories vary in level of sophistication, features and advertiser offerings. It’s hard to sort the good from the bad, but here are two things I consider when evaluating directories.

First – let’s remember the Golden Rule: a worthwhile directory listing is the one that generates good leads. So, regardless of what I say here, if you have a good lead source, keep it!

1. Does the directory listing include a link to your web site? If not – I usually throw it out. For whatever reason, some directories are more concerned with keeping people on their site instead of getting them to your site. They sort of recreate your site within their domain, collect info requests and send a report every month detailing how many leads their directory generated for your community. In my experience, many of those leads are low quality. When properly configured, free analytics tools, such as Google Analytics, can tell you if traffic referred from another web site generates leads, so you don’t need someone else to do that for you.

2. Is it a good resource? Is the directory easy to use? Does it include a good array of senior living options? Would someone looking for senior living communities in your market find the directory useful? Search “retirement communities” or “senior living” in your market and see which directories show up first. Usually it’s the ones with the most substance. You can bet those are likely sites your prospects visit. Then – see #1.