Are Business Directories Important to an Online Marketing Campaign?

Businesses understand the importance of ensuring a strong presence on the web and therefore often look to list themselves on a business directory. There are many free & paid services to be found on the Internet and unfortunately many of them are just detracting business owners from the few quality and established sites that are actually worth registering on. Accuracy of information is key to the success of a business directory listing. We speak to a lot of businesses every day about their experiences of adding their company details to a free business directory, and the following three things keep coming up: 1 - Why does it have to be so hard? - Most directories still have a very complicated registration process, with businesses having to fill out page after page of information. A complicated registration process is not a good introduction to an online business directory with many businesses just pulling out half way through registering. 2 - The Shotgun Approach to marketing - Businesses typically register with many different free directories without much thought as to what one is the right one - some just choosing a directory on its looks! Apart from the time they wasted creating their listing on a business directory that is not going to be of any benefit to them and some directories may employ hard sales tactics after you've registered. 3 - An Advert is not just for Christmas - So many businesses add their company details and information about their business, and then neglect the advert, i.e. never update the content to keep the advert fresh & relevant. The result is that potential customers are viewing incorrect content, wrong addresses and telephone numbers and / or out of date information on products and services. If you create an advert on a business directory you must take a note of your user name and password and regularly login and review your content and amend it if necessary - a good service will allow you to do this as often as you want, completely free of charge. So, perhaps diarise a monthly admin afternoon to check and update all your business directory listings at once. Used properly and in the right business directory, your online listings can be a very powerful tool in your online marketing campaign. It can be instantly amended 24/7 with your latest offers, product lines and services, or you can regularly amend the content on your business advert to promote or focus on a specific product or service at different times. Whatever you do, please don't just create a bland advert and leave it out there - unloved and uncared for. You wouldn't open a shop and never change anything around in it, so treat your online adverts as your virtual shop window.