Do I Need to Advertise on Business Directory Sites?

This is a common question I get from business owners around the UK asking whether they should be listing their company on business directories. The answer is not as straight forward as a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’, as it depends on a few variables like the business type, the reputation of the business directory, and your own commitment to making sure you keep the advert details up-to-date.

These sites can be a great addition to your ‘paid-for’ marketing budget as most of them (even the quality ones) offer free advertising. However, some may charge a nominal amount for a link to your website – this can be a very worthwhile addition to you profile as they can direct potential customers straight to your website, and therefore increase customer enquiries.

So what business types are appropriate for adverting in a Business Directory?

Well in short, most businesses should think about and action a business directory strategy. Basically, if you think people will search for your business type in a major search engine like Google, then this is your ‘yes’ answer, and your should definitely start listing your business on quality and human edited directories.

How do I find reputable Business Directories?

This is an easy question to answer as a quick Google search for ‘business directories’ with give you most of the quality and 'human edited' ones on page 1 and 2. These are generic sites that advertise businesses regardless of the type of company. I suggest you pick a maximum of 5 quality sites to start with to list / validate your business on. Also, it’s very important that you add unique content to each directory site about your products and services – copy and pasting duplicate content about your business on many sites may have a neutral or even negative impact to your company in the eyes of major search engines.

Undoubtedly you will have heard of some of the sites due to brand awareness, however, there will be ones new to you – this isn’t a bad thing as a lot of the top directories rely on links to their customer’s adverts appearing in organic searches of Google, Bing and Yahoo. This means people searching for a business like yours may not remember the site they found you on (because they used Google), however, they have found that all important link to your business.

What about specific business type directories?

In addition to generic directories that will drive customers to your business or company website, you should action a Google search for ‘<your business type>+business directory’. For example, if you are a wedding photographer then search for ‘wedding photographer business directory’ and look for quality niche sites that you can list your business on. This is a great SEO strategy if you can also get a quality link back to your website, as the topic on the site matches the content type on your site, and this increases the relevance of the link which search engines place extra importance upon.

So what are the top 5 golden rules to advertising on Business Directories?

This is my simple advice to starting and maintaining your business directory advertising strategy, to get your business noticed on the web:

1. Choose a maximum of 5 quality generic directories to advertise your business on
2. Research and choose quality specific business type directories
3. Add your profile to all directories using unique and well written content for each one
4. Write down or remember your access details for each one – keep the content up-to-date
5. Link and talk about your adverts from social sites like Twitter and Facebook

What should I avoid when starting a Business Directory strategy?

Okay, so there are plenty of dos and don’ts with this marketing strategy – here are some of my top must avoids:

1. Don’t use online tools to submit to 1000s of directory sites – this may harm your SEO
2. Make sure you don’t duplicate contents across the sites, again this may harm your SEO
3. Don’t just add your name, address and phone number – add email and links to your website
4. Don’t just add the minimum number of characters that describes your business, write up to the maximum allowed characters for each site, and make use of keywords that you think people will search for your company by
5. Don’t leave the content fester for months / years – keep it fresh, and if you run offers / discounts then keep these updated with an expiry date

So that’s my advice on how to action a good business directory advertising strategy. If you have any of your own tips or advice then please leave a comment for us to discuss.

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Written by James Stevens (Google+). James is a freelance blogger that has a passion for all things business and Internet related. He's recently worked with various business marketing companies, the latest being the Wampit® business directory.