Paid directory submissions

[hunny]

Has anyone subscribed for paid business listing to 'Business Magnet'? If so... was it worth it?

 

[fisicx]

No. It's not worth it

 

[hunny]

Thanks Graham, they were selling the fact that our competitors get £££ worth of referrals but I guess its their word.

 

[Ashley_Price]

Thanks Graham, they were selling the fact that our competitors get £££ worth of referrals but I guess its their word.

Every business directory will tell you that.

I don't know about Business Magnet specifically, but like all directories or business listings, what works for one won't work for another. I stopped advertising in Yellow Pages years ago as it never got me any business. Yet, my friend, who had a similar business, still advertises in it to this day as she says the ad generates enough business to pay for itself each year.

 

[Paul Willocks]

Generally I dont think paid directories are worth using in this day and age although they can work for certain business types, plumbers and electricians etc. I have met with sales people from Yellow Pages and other directories in the past where they have been trying to sell their service and they promise the earth but rarely deliver.

If you want to go down the directory route there are some great free directories available.

 

[UrbanLockerSelfStorage]

I think most directories spend all their time trying to get more customers and not enough time trying to market themselves to the public. For example, before Business Magnet contacted you had you ever come across them before? There's only one directory that I see advertising anywhere and that's Yell.com.

 

[Sam Richards]

Only do it if it's very relevant to your business.

 

[Alan]

Never heard of them.

 

[Ikkie]

its consider spam nowadays.

 

[Steve Alphabet]

To help your website's SEO, sign up the main (ie established and legit) ones (yell.com, 118 etc) but just go for the free listing. They're no good for leads, but search engines do cross-check to confirm you're genuine, so it's worth taking a few minutes to do. Just be prepared for the upsell attempts

 

[dimpenvlth]

Relevant to business directories are worth to submit your site, for example shopping or local directories. Just search google and check first pages.

 

[Alby10]

Generally its not worth the money. As mentioned from a citation perspective for local business, get a free listing and add NAP info.

 

[UKSBD]

Edit: Deleted link to unlisted video

 

[Court Jester]

Directories can be good, although you can tell the cheapo naff ones without asking for advice.

The web these days is too risky to invent websites that say a lot, but not deliver. Having run a very basic directory before (it was a list of my copywriting b2b clients basically), can tell you many of the directories do a good job, many will do a ok job and quite a few are just naff.

I always look at websites as a soap-box, where the salesman plugs his product - and if sales come from it, great! if not, the price is irrelevant to what a few sales will mean from happy customers, testimonials, repeat business etc.

 

[UKSBD]

Here is the video I linked to previously and then deleted.
(I got permission from https://digitalgarage.withgoogle.com to post it)

Some might find it a bit basic, but the courses at digitalgarage may be useful for some.

 

[Mike Wilford]

Don't pay for any directory - get yourself to the top of google - that's the only directory you need to be on

 

[Court Jester]

Don't pay for any directory - get yourself to the top of google

Unless you have 30k per month to keep on googles first page, then forget that dreamland idea. I know of one SEO who charges 8k per client, so that's probabaly minimum spend you're looking at. Then you got maintenance fees on top, so yep - tens of thousands a year - so not workable for many I'm, afraid.

Much guesswork involved with any website, and seems to me that this applies to blogs, forums ie; traffic is never disclosed, just 'member numbers' which don't tell you squat about 'activity' on a website. Some may show you who their clients are eg: BMW, BBC etc but traffic levels are a secret, youll never get to the truth of how well or poorly directories perform.

You can have 1000 members doing 10000 searches, buying 200k of products each year. Its always about quality than quantity. Directories always seem to get a battering, and much is misguided info by fools who advise fools, who have never owned, ran, worked for etc any directory at all. So how can they know about any directory's numbers? - hello, do you see what I'm saying here.

But any directory needs investment, although can be done using the lean and mean method - but at somepoint needs capital to get it started. You see - many have set up directories this, so problem is the 'directory' got tagged with a bad rep, and now the only advice or bad mouthing comes from forums, which I distrust to a point anyway as I've done most promotion activities so know what works and why.

Ive always viewed directories as 'easy link' in that their cheap, few barriers to entry and you get a good long term before renewal is up.

 

[TODonnell]

In any niche there are about 3 - 6 directories/ad sites worth being in, of which 1 might bring you some leads. The UK is too small to sustain more.

Keep well away from people who offer to submit your site to 300 directories. That's a good way to burn your website.

 

[hunny]

Thanks to everyone for your comments... didn't end up going with any paid directories as further thought tells me that if anyone is searching for a product they will google it and not go onto a directory to look most likely.

 

[SimplyMyLove]

I don't usually pay for listings in any business directories, as I find them mostly worthless. I paid Yell, Yahoo and DOMZ for business listings many years ago, but they didn't drive any business to me at all.