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Once upon a time phone directories were considered quite resourceful whenever someone wanted to find a particular local service, product, company or professional. In such times, if you were a business owner or professional looking to grow business or market your service, you would want first to list your business in the yellow pages phone directory. It worked then, but today we simply find business listings on web directories. Web directories have proven to be a more efficient and effective advertising platforms. They will help your business grow, get more customers and save money on advertising. Most companies are already featured on web directories, don’t be the last to arrive at the party! THE WISER THE BETTER One Michael Wong, the owner of a cleaning and maid service company in Alberta, Canada, arrived late. Wong’s cleaning Service Company was one of two such companies in the town. Word was that Mr. Wong offered the best and most professional services, but this only landed him local clients. This wasn’t enough, and he soon found his business going down. His competition was doing rather well, and business was always good on the other side. To save his business, Mr. Wong decided to re-brand and do a complete office make over – paint job, lighting, carpeting, display, everything. He wanted the best Décor Company to do his company’s make over. This meant searching for the professionals from different sources. While surfing the internet one day, he happened upon a site that lead him to a local web directory. He ran a search for décor companies. The results were impressing. Then, rather reluctantly, he ran a search for cleaning service companies in Alberta. Behold! His competition was listed-atop. Upon going through the reviews left by some of the client’s served by the company, he could make out that most of them were from out of town. He realized that he had focused more on local clients while his competition secured both a share of the local pie and other clients from out of town. Also, the web directory he used to search listed businesses for free. And here, Wong spent quite the budget on newspaper advertising in the classifieds. He could now save money by listing on the web directory, and spare the budget he had set aside for the office make over. WHY GET LISTED ? Most potential customers and clients looking for services have moved their business searches online. The use of internet directory services to find professionals, services and products has become so common that it is taking over to become the number one go-to source. Half of the people looking for businesses or services use web directories to find the best service or product before making a purchase. As a business owner, you want to pull away effort put towards ineffective promotions and lacklustre marketing strategies in order to save money. All focus should be directed towards advertising and marketing strategies that are proven, effective and that will benefit your end goal. Internet business directories are a great place to advertise your business and get more customers. There are a number of reasons why you should list your business. Here are some few reasons to get listed with a web director today. GET MORE VISITORS !! 8 out of 10 customers will use a web directory to research a service or business product before making purchases. Customers are usually presented with the directory’s page whenever they perform a search related to your business, brand or service. The directory page appears at the top of the returned search results making it visible to most visitors. In turn, this translates to more customers, increased purchases and ultimately more revenue for your company. TARGETED ADVERTISING Generally, people using web directories already know what service or product they need. This makes business directories the perfect form of targeted advertising. All that needs to be done is to get listed, position your listing strategically in suitable directories so that most of your target customers can see your ads. The advantage of targeted advertising is that the customer already has need rather than need emanating from the advertisement campaign. This means that every customer who visits your ads or listing is most likely to end up making a purchase or subscribing to a service. Best be sure not to let your competition grab hold of these customers before you do. SAVE ON THE MARKETING BUDGET For any business, advertising campaigns take a large share of the budget set aside for marketing. Online directories let you list your business for just a nominal fee, making them a cheap advertisement platform. Using online directories as an advertising platform will save your business a lot of money that would have been otherwise spent on newspaper classifieds and column inches. ADVERTS ARE LONG-LASTING Online directories have a segment where your business will be listed – featuring, your business name, location service or product offered, contact information and other relevant detail. This segment will be available over a long time and will be made available to anyone who searches for your niche service, specific brand or even location. On the other hand, newspaper classifieds are only available for a limited period of time, say a month or even a week, and you have to pay to be listed. Web directories thus offer the best and most effective advertising platform, not limited by time. There is no better place to market your business. INCREASES YOUR VISIBILITY ONLINE If your business has a website –all businesses must have a website-then you know the importance of performing SEO on your site. You also are aware of the benefits of optimizing your website for the search engine. It goes without saying that when performing optimization, your website will require many back links. Digital directories offer strong back links to your website. They allow you to link your business website through the directory listing. You will need to list your business to as many relevant online directories as possible. Each of these directories will be used as your website’s back links. This will have a significant impact in improving your search engine rankings. Consequently your site will get more customers visiting and ultimately your conversion rates will improve. Revenue will be good and your business will grow.