Free Business Directory

Marketing is a profession on its own, and requires a large skill set which people spend years developing, not to mention every day keeping up to date with the latest ideas. Chances are, however, that as a small business owner you neither have the time not the inclination to immerse yourself in these tasks. However, any smart business person knows that visibility is vital; at the precise moment someone is considering spending money on a product or service you provide, they can put their finger – or thumb, or cursor – on your business, rather than your competitors. The world wide web has many advantages, but with these come challenges. Before the internet, potential customers had to riffle through (yellow) pages of listings and adverts, look at local press or even in shop windows. Today, the search engine replaces all of that hard work.

What is an Online Business Directory?

As search engines are the first step to finding businesses, so online business directories are often where people end up in order to choose between companies offering the product or service they want. In this way, an online directory is a quick, handy and much less cumbersome version of old fashioned paper directories. Indeed, Yellow Pages and other directories wasted no time in producing online versions of their directories. This is only a small part of the picture, however, because there is much more choice in which online directory any potential customer eventually chooses.

Business Owner

As a business owner, you’ll want to choose the directory or directories which drive the most business your way. For owners of businesses requiring direct access, such as hairdressers, the best directories will be those covering a geographical area; for specialist producers or service providers, visibility is needed on directories catering for these kind of searches. Again, you should regularly review anywhere your business is listed or advertised, including business directories.

Getting Listed in a Business Directory

As a rule, any business directory will offer a free listing service for any business which qualifies for certain criteria; i.e. falls within a geographical area or offers products and services of a particular kind. This type of listing just requires obvious contact details, type of business and especially website URL. This will at least ensure that your business appears next to your competitors somewhere in the search results on that directory. As this service is free, it is often worth having as long as the directory itself is current and up to date. All directories, offer premium services, however.

Features

For a fee, the directory will place your business, logo and any graphics or text you provide in a prominent place on the search results page. The fee will cover a time period – usually a month – after which you’ll be able to review the cost effectiveness of the premium fee. To begin with, invest some time and effort into investigating where hits on your website have come from; i.e. how many have come via the directory in question. If you notice a marked increase in leads from a particular directory, it could well be worth investing in that site’s premium services.

Choosing a Business Directory

As business directories usually offer a free basic service, it could be tempting to have your business listed in all of them. This is not a good idea, however; both search engines and regular internet users will notice this blanket coverage and identify it as spamming. The key is to go for quality of directory, not quantity of coverage. A online directory service has experience of what works and what doesn’t.  They’ll help you identify which are the best sites to choose in the first place, and then monitor traffic from each. By making use of this expertise, you’ll be able to see which free listings are worth investing in, and which are not. It may be that some directories are best avoided, especially if there is too much exposure in your field. Careful investment in marketing on those sites which generate business is money well spent, and an business directory expert will advise you to target that investment quickly to gain a competitive edge.