Local and Trade web directories

An important, yet very cheap, form of marketing are the Internet (web) directories. Many directories exist covering geographical areas - the whole UK and/or more local areas. You can easily obtain a small but regular stream of local visitors to your web site by having an entry in as many local directories for your area as possible - and most of them are free. They usually classify entries by type of business, and town or locality.

As part of our service we submit your web site to some of the global search directories. But you need to find the local directories and submit the site to them. There will be directories for:-

• your town (usually several directories for a medium size town - add an entry to them all)
• and local districts and other community sites in your town
• and surrounding villages (if they only accept the village's own businesses onto their business pages, they may still allow you a link on their "Links" page)
• and the county or state
• if you have branches in different towns, don't forget them
• the whole of the UK (or whatever country you may be in)
• the web sites of the trade organisations for your particular industry
• Internet directories specifically for your industry - for instance there are vertical trade directories (usually several per trade) for hotels and guest houses, estate agents, second hand car sales, and many more
• local business clubs, business organisations, and your local chamber of commerce
• if you export, add yourself to national and local sites in the countries you trade with

To find these directories, go to Google (www.google.co.uk) and do searches for your town, area  and county to get the geographical directories, Then search for your trade or industry. For instance, if you operate a plumbing business try searching Google for words like "plumbers" and "plumbing". The first couple of result pages will likely include several such directories.

The way Internet directories work for you is two-fold:-

• People looking for a type of business in a directory see your entry and click on the link to your site, some of them subsequently buying from you.
• The above mentioned search engines also search the directories and find the site links in them. They will rate your site according to how many other sites (including directories) they find linking to it. The more inward links they find to your site, the higher they will rate your site themselves, and therefore the higher they will place you when they list your site (i.e. more people searching for your kind of service will see them). So it pays to be listed in as many directories (and other sites) as possible.

For this second purpose the free directories are likely to be just as valuable as paid for ones, so we do not suggest you spend money on this, unless you know that particular directories are especially effective in your area, or trade, in bringing traffic to their member sites.

We also suggest you don't spend too much time on it - it is easy to think the Internet is the panacea for all business ills. It isn't. But it can certainly help to promote your business if used well. It is certainly worth while spending a few minutes, say once a week, to add yourself to another directory or two, especially ones for your local town or area.