If you are not an established brand, it can be a little more difficult to improve your visibility online.
That’s where listing your business on free directories can help.
The best one is Google My Business. It’s Google’s entry level product and it’s free. It gets you listed on Google Maps and makes you searchable across the web and in our mind is the most important listing you should get.
Some of the other free directories worth exploring include:
- Hotfrog – http://hotfrog.com.au
- True Local – https://www.truelocal.com.au/
- Start Local www.startlocal.com.au
- Aussie Web – https://www.aussieweb.com.au/
- This is a great free listing service where you can add your business. It’s a relatively straight forward process to get a listing. They will contact you though and try to upsell you into other packages.
- Yelp – http://yelp.com.au
- This is more of a review site than a directory listing. You can’t just list your business here – someone who wants to review you adds you. So if you have a happy customer, it’s a good idea to encourage them to review you.
- Yellow Book – http://www.yellowbook.com/
- This is free but this is more relevant for businesses that have a presence in the United States.
- White Pages – https://freead.yellow.com.au/signup
- Yellow Pages Online – https://freead.yellow.com.au/signup
- Some categories are competitive so you may not be able to get a free listing. You won’t know until you try. It’s a good little lead generator for Yellow Pages who will try and upsell you into their paid online packages and also sell you Google advertising services using their Click Manager. It’s an entry level product and they get commission of sorts from Google. If you want access to your data (and we believe you should), then it may not be the best product for you.
- White Pages – https://freead.yellow.com.au/signup
- Like Yellow Pages, White Pages also offer a free listing. You’ll probably have a similar experience to Yellow Pages. It’s worth considering.
- Brown Book – http://brownbook.net
- This directory is simple enough to use. Australian businesses can list there so it’s not a bad option.
- Yahoo – http://add.yahoo.com/fast/add
- There’s no guarantee your free listing will appear as they get an awful lot of submissions every day and don’t have the resources to keep up. Yahoo also offer a paid listing which will set you back US$299.00.
A word of warning.
Getting yourself listed on some of these listings mean some of the larger businesses with an established salesforce will try and upsell you into their online advertising packages. Yellow pages and Aussie Web are two such companies.
If you don’t to be hassled by a sales rep, consider avoiding them. Otherwise expect a call tying to upsell you.
More directories
Other directories worthy of consideration include directories in your local council or any business networks you belong too that have directory listings.
Some local councils here in Melbourne that offer free directory listings include:
- Glen Eira City Council http://www.gleneira.vic.gov.au/Connect/Business/Business_directory
- Kingston City Council – http://www.kingston.vic.gov.au/business/Business-Directory
So it’s worth visiting your local council website and seeing what they offer to businesses.
It’s also worth considering listing your business on directories related to your market. For example if you are in the building industry, consider getting yourself listed on directories like:
- Home One http://www.homeone.com.au/
- Home One charges a fee of $220 for 13 months. Whilst it’s not free, this may be worth considering if you are the right market.
- Home Improvement Pages. – https://www.homeimprovementpages.com.au/advertise
- Whilst this is not a free listing, at the time of writing the fee to advertising started from as little as $69. That’s pretty cheap advertising in my book.
Above all, look for directories that are reputable and trustworthy. Quite time back now, some directories got caned by Google. Your objective is not to be listed on every single one of them. Go for the most reputable and trustworthy sites only.
When you do list, please ensure the information you place on them is consistent across all the directories. There are many reasons why. The main one being that consistency helps improve local SEO.
If you decide to pay to advertise in some vertical specific markets, we recommend using the Google URL builder so you can measure where your traffic is coming from and which ones give you the best results. You can find a handy tutorial for it here along with some other tips on how to measure your marketing effectiveness.
Finally, if you are a small business and a member of the Flying Solo community or serve start ups and small businesses, why not get yourself listed there.
If you need help putting all this together, contact us. We have a lot of experience in helping businesses of sizes grow.