Using online directories to attract customers

Online directories can be a low cost method of driving potential customers to your site. There is a real opportunity to reach an audience within a particular index and to enhance your search engine rankings on the internet.  Read on to find out how online directories can help your company to attract customers.

Where to advertise online

Until recently, online directories such as yell.com or the yahoo directory have been index based, allowing companies to list their name and contact details. Costs can be smaller and more reasonable compared to other marketing techniques. For local based directories it can often be free to list your company, whereas national sites are likely to charge you a couple hundred pounds a year. Inevitably bigger visible adverts will cost extra, as will having your company listed under multiple categories.

Directories can be great for boosting your SEO, however advertising using this approach will not guarantee custom, considering that your business will be amongst hundreds of others on a page. Therefore it can highly competitive and make it difficult for your company to standout when taking the directory route.

If the directory is free, there is no gamble and your company has nothing to lose out on. Nethertheless, depending on your target market it may be more worthwhile to optimise your marketing potential on your own site and spending money on targeted adverting via Google ad words for instance.

Customer directory reviews

An increasing number of directories are offering simple rating systems and customers the chance to post business reviews. It’s evident that users are moving towards social based websites, combining business listings with reviews allowing people to share their experiences. Free index is an example of a directory that has customer reviews.

The target audience that you select can be of great importance when choosing where to advertise. If you trying to target a nationwide or global audience, it’s unlikely that a local directory will be of much use other than to increase your link value and the position that your company achieves within search engines.  However, if your company is trying to attract local clientele, submitting a website to a local directory can be worthwhile in generating positive results.  Picking a sector specific directory site can also be useful in order to drive more targeted results.

Writing a listing

It’s important to communicate as much as possible about your business when writing a listing for a directory. Some directory sites only require your business name and contact details, while others may provide more space to write about the services that you provide.

When writing a listing put yourselves in your customers shoes and try to include your unique selling feature. For example if your company provides a 24 hour service, promote this clearly within your listing.

Finally, track your traffic to measure the effectiveness of your listing. Do not solely rely on directory figures, especially when your company is paying to marketing their services. Google Analytics is a free and useful service, allowing you to track where your traffic is coming from and whether it’s worthwhile to carry on down that avenue.

To get you started, free directories that your company may wish to try out other than those already mentioned could be Thomson Local or the UK Business to Business Directory.