If you are just getting started with your online business or if you are looking for a way to help your online business to succeed, you need to put a major focus on advertising. The people who view your page are the ones who will click on your ads and purchase your products, so you obviously want to make sure to bring in as much traffic as possible. Fortunately, adding your business to a business directory can help to bring in tons of traffic.
One of the benefits of submitting your site to a business directory is the fact that a link on one of these sites can help your site to increase in the search engines. Search engine rankings are very important because more and more people are relying on search engine results when looking for various products and services, so this alone will help your site to succeed in a whole new way.
Not only will you see more traffic come in as a result of a higher search engine ranking, but business directories will also help you to pull in targeted traffic. Targeted traffic consists of viewers who are actually interested in the content that your site offers and the products and services that you sell, and this type of traffic is much more valuable than simply bringing in individuals who probably won’t be interested in your website.
Because business directories are often categorized, those who find your website will be those who have been looking for a business or website that is related to yours. This means that the traffic that comes in from a business directory will be more likely to be interested in clicking on the ads that pop up on your site, and they will also be more likely to purchase products and services from your company.
Another benefit of using these online directories is the fact that they can be some of the cheapest and most effective methods of advertising. Although some Web directories charge expensive review fees, many of them allow you to post your website on the directory for a very reasonable fee. For instance, you can list your website on a directory like Jasmine Directory for only ten dollars, which is a steal when you think about all of the traffic that the directory could bring you.
When you compare this to the other methods of advertising that you could get for a mere ten dollars, you will quickly see just how beneficial, effective and affordable these online web directory listings can be for your business.
If you are ready to help your business to succeed and if you are ready to see more traffic on your site, you should look into listing your site on an online directory as soon as possible. Due to the cheap rates, the higher search engine rankings and the traffic that these directories bring in, you are sure to make the money back from your minimal investment very quickly, making it all the more worthwhile.
When it comes to online advertising many businesses are turning to online business directories to increase their online presence. While this is a good idea, it only works if you know what you’re doing and have clearly defined goals. Just haphazardly listing your business in various directories isn’t’ likely to net you a large number of new customers or clients.
Instead you need to make sure that you are doing this in a way that will get you the maximum amount of exposure possible. Let’s take a look at how you can use online business directories for online advertising for your business.
Maximum Exposure
The goal behind getting maximum exposure for your business online is twofold: branding and bringing in new customers and clients. Listing in business directories by itself isn’t a powerful strategy. For example, let’s say you list your business in “Ed’s Generic Business Directory.” How much traffic (visitors) do you think Ed’s site is getting? Probably not a lot, which means your chances for getting a noticeable amount of customers from such sources is slim.
The first thing you need to do is target business directories that are getting a lot of traffic. Once you’ve listed in the top tier directories you can then move on to listing in smaller directories, they can still be useful in other ways.
Advertising Locally
Before we move on you need to understand that while business directories can be used to advertise both online and local businesses, they can be particularly powerful for local business advertisement. This is due to the fact that phone books are falling out of favor and more and more people are turning to the internet when they need to look up a local business. This makes positioning yourself well in your market extremely important online.
One thing you have to realize though, is the fact that when a person who need a dentist in real life looks it up online, they aren’t going to a business directory to find it. In most cases they’ll just type it into Google and see what pops up. This is where things get tricky.
Using Google Places
Google is the #1 search engine in the world right now. When someone wants something, they use Google. This being the case, being on page one of Google can be a gold mine for you if you know what you’re doing. When it comes to local businesses the first thing to popup on Google are Google Places listings in most cases. For example, if you type in “Dallas Dentists” you’ll get a tone of Google Places listings.
Now keep in mind that Google Places is different from the Google business directory, but still just as important, if not more so. Google Places, if used correctly, can be the single largest point of exposure your business gets online. However, unlike ranking in the normal Google results with SEO (search engine optimization) ranking in Google Places is a bit different.
To rank in Google Places you have to make your listing relevant, or at least make Google perceive it as such. To do this, you need to have your business also listed in various other directories which are crawled regularly by Google’s search “spiders.”
The more places your business is listed, the more serious Google Places will take you and rank you hire. The trick here is to ensure that all your information on each listing is exactly the same. This will let Google know that they’re all connected and give you ranking power accordingly.
Exceptions to the Rule
There are a few exceptions to the information we just covered. For example B2B businesses may benefit more from being listed in business directories associated with their particular business, since people looking to contact them will be others with in the industry who may not use Google to search for what they need.
Also businesses with relatively small customer and client bases, such as doctors and lawyers, will get more benefit from listing with as many directories as possible, even the smaller ones. This is of course because these types of businesses don’t need as many clients to turn a profit and too many clients can even be problematic. It should still be noted that having to turn away potential clients is always better than not having enough.