Submitting your details to as many directories as possible used to be one of the first things that you would do if you were trying to get found online. This is no longer the case and in most situations, search engines will not index these low-quality submissions. However, this does not mean that using a high-quality niche relevant local directory is something you should avoid. If you are a tradesman, advertising on a high-quality local tradesman directory can still help you get found online.
Furthermore, if you are a small business like many tradesmen or home builders it can be difficult and costly to advertise your business. For many tradesmen and home builders, they are composed of a small team and do not have an extensive budget for marketing and can end up spending a lot of money with little to no results. Furthermore, some directories have a pay per lead service where you only pay for leads that you get. High-quality local tradesman or high-quality local home builder directories that are ranked highly in the search engines for relevant services can be a cost-effective way to advertise your business.
They Provide Targeted Buyer Traffic
If someone searches in a search engine for your trade service and lands on the niche directory or is browsing directory it is likely that they are looking to buy these services. When a potential customer calls you or clicks through to your site, then they may already be likely to convert to your customer. Buyers offten prefer using a directory to Google or other search engines when they are looking to purchase a good or service. This is becuase search engine results can be less organised than directories when you search for services in Melbourne (in Australia) sometimes you will get results for Melbourne in Florida in USA. With a local niche directory, you can filter by the exact locations you need.
They Are A Better Choice Than General Directories
Niche directories (e.g. tradesman directories if you are a tradesman or home builder directories if you are a home builder) are always going to be a better choice than general directories, mostly due to the fact that they provide targeted traffic and are more relevant to your business if you are building backlinks to your website or citations for your Google My Business.
Tradesman or home builder directories are relevant places to be listed
Getting listed in general or irrelevant niche directories usually does not help you. Google will generally not index these listings and ignore the links from these sites.
One of the most effective SEO strategies is to get links from highly relevant pages on highly relevant sites, a niche directory that is relevant to your business can do that. Even if you don’t have a website but you have a Google My Business listing then getting citations with your business name, address and phone number listed in a high-quality relevant niche directory can help your Google My Business listing rank high in Google search.
Great places for business reviews
Getting reviews of your business from satisfied customers is a great way for people to get familiar with and trust your business. Even negative reviews, if they are legitimate, can let you know what you are doing wrong in your business and help your business improve. The key is to respond quickly and professionally to any negative or poor reviews and if they are legitimate, try to rectify the problem. Some companies spend thousands of dollars on focus groups to determine how to improve their business, reading the legitimate negative review and using the feedback to improve your business is a much more cost-effective way.
Match The Competition
If customers are visiting a directory and your competitors are listed there but you are not then you are missing out on opportunities for business. If you have a website and want to increase the rankings, links to your site come from the same place as your competitors can also benefit your site rankings. Looking at how your competition market and advertise themselves in a directory can also give you some ideas for your own marketing.
Association With Other Businesses
Listing your business on a directory means that you are associated with all the other businesses that are also listed. As long as these sites are all active and there are no broken links, then this will be beneficial for you in terms of SEO.
It Supplements Other Link Building Activities
If you are trying to rank your website, then there is a good chance you will be trying to build backlinks in other places as well. If other sites are linking to your site from relevant pages, then Google will provide more weight to those links. Having a listing in a niche directory helps do this.
It Can Help Your Google My Business Listing
Niche directories often appear in the review section of companies on their Google My Business listing. This shows that Google does take into account what people post about your business on local niche directories. Highly ranked Google My Business listings are a good source of traffic as typically Google put the top three listings at the top of a search results page above all or most of the other organic listings.
Summary
While posting a listing in a local trade directory is a good idea if you are a tradie, you do need to think about the quality of the directory. Not all directories are created equal and search engines will give preference to those that they consider to be of better quality (quality directories will be highly ranked in the search results for relevant terms). Submitting to a niche directory shouldn’t be the only thing you do to market your tradie business, but it works very well as part of a complete campaign.
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