What Should an Online Business Directory do for You?
There are many ways and many places to promote and list your business. From Yelp to Yellow Pages, you’ve got a lot of options when it comes to listing your business in an online business directory. Before you decide to list in a business directory, you need to understand what that listing should be doing for you and your business.
Reach a Unique Audience
In today’s world of business and marketing, the shotgun approach to reaching consumers by sending a message to everyone is no longer a viable approach to growing your business. Instead, your online business profile should be listed somewhere that attracts a unique audience that is specific to your business. This way, you can tailor the message specifically to them and turn that audience base into a customer base.
Strengthen Your Brand
You brand image is one of the most valuable assets to your business. Each marketing decision you make can either weaken or strengthen your brand. Your listing in an online business directory should provide a clear picture and compelling description that is a strong reflection of your business. In addition, where you choose to list your business should strengthen your brand. Make sure that you are listing your business on a website that is established as a reputable source of reliable information. Keeping good company is another great way to strengthen your brand.
This is an example of a listing with UniversityParent:
Click here to get your own listing like this.
Get Impressions > Click-Throughs > Conversions
If you’ve found the right place to list your business and have created a knockout listing, there is one piece of the puzzle left. Your listing in an online business directory now has to perform by garnering impressions, driving traffic, and converting visitors.
Impressions
Don’t let the importance of impressions go understated. The more often a consumer sees your listing, the more familiar they become with your brand. Since you’ve already taken the steps to make sure your listing strengthens your brand, each impressions increases the likelihood that the consumer visits your site either by clicking on the listing, or even by directly visiting your website after finishing their research.
Click-Throughs
Getting click-throughs starts first with getting impressions from the right audience, which is why you chose an online business directory that gets traffic from the consumers you are trying to reach. The second step is to have a listing in place that encourages consumers to visit your site, which is why you created a listing that strengthens your brand. By taking those two steps before jumping into an online business directory, you’ve set yourself up for success by reaching an engaged audience and inviting them to explore your business. This is when you see the clicks come in.
Conversions
Ultimately, you want to be able to see the monetary benefit from your investment in an online business directory. To do this, you need to make sure that you have the steps in place to track the traffic you are receiving from the business directory. If you can’t track conversions you won’t have the data necessary to evaluate the successfulness of your listing. By reaching the right audience who is looking for the products or services you offer, you increase your chances of converting consumers who clicked through to your website from your listing in an online business directory.