How this guide helps you
One of the enemies of businesses is being unsure which forms of online visibility is bringing in the enquiries, making it hard to determine whether there’s return on investment.
Many online directories capitalise on that lack of insight, and businesses routinely pay their fees each year thinking that those directories contribute towards their success. While there are many such directories, a few of the more well-known ones are:
- Applegate
- Businessmagnet
- Find the Needle
- Yell/Hibu
There was a time years ago when these directories achieved good Google rankings for search phrases. So if someone searched for ‘red widgets’ they’d find the directory prominently in Google, would click through to advertiser pages and, in theory, make contact.
But many of the directories fell foul of Google and have never recovered that prominent search engine ranking. This means that the only people who would find your paid listings on those directories would be those that found those directories somehow.
We’re not saying that online directories are awful but we are saying that we’ve seen far too much over the years that leads us to be suspicious and to encourage businesses to do their own analysis.
If you pay for profiles within online directories then you’ll be familiar with that annual call asking you to renew and you asking the question “is it worth it?”. This guide takes you through step by step so that you can make the right decision when considering renewing your online directory listing.