The cost is only $299 for an annual subscription, which includes submission, optimization and ongoing management of local business data to over 90 local business directories — includes Google Maps, Yahoo Local, Bing Local, Yellow Pages, Super Pages, Comcast and more.

What are online directories?

Many of you are familiar with online directories — for those who are not, here is a quick review. When your potential customer makes a search on Google, Yahoo, Bing or another search engine — they get a results page that looks something like the image above. Search results are actually comprised of three different results which all come from different sets of data.

The results down the right hand side and sometimes at the very top of the page are ‘pay per click’ ads — you gain position there by your willingness to pay a certain amount each time your ad is ‘clicked’. This can be an expensive proposition.

The results in the middle of the page are ‘organic’ or ‘natural’ results. You gain position there by optimizing your website. This process is known as Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This involves a comprehensive review of keyword activity as it relates to your business, competitive analysis and creation of optimized tags and content. Top organic rank can take a long time to achieve and depending on the techniques used, can be an expensive proposition as well. For more information on affordable organic optimization contact Tate Design or call at 610.725.0702.

The other set of results that appear when a search is made are online directory or local results. These are the results that appear with an image of a map and usually list 3-10 local businesses.

Why are online directories such a fantastic marketing value?
Consider the following:

• 25% of searchers will click on the ‘local directory’ results while only 20% click on PPC results.
• PPC ads have ongoing costs each time an ad is ‘clicked’ — directory listings
  do not.
• Typically, a business must have a website in order to appear in the organic results — you can have top directory rank without having a website.
• Recent changes in search algorithms have dramatically increased the frequency of display of online directory results.
• Valuable online directories include more then just the ‘Big 3’ search engines. Many other online directories spend millions of dollars driving visitors to their sites. Your online directory listing will be included in YellowBook, YellowPages, SuperPages, Merchant Circle, Yelp and many more.

Why should you optimize and manage your online directory listings?

• Unless you are controlling and managing your online directory listing — the information in these directories will often be incomplete and inaccurate. Typical online directory data has been ‘scraped’ from white and yellow page listings and from government records and contains just address and phone number.
• In order to achieve top rank in online directories listings should be:
  

  Submitted by the business entity Enhanced to contain valuable data such as brands carried, hours, payment options, languages spoken, multiple phone numbers, web address, e-mail address and other data that is important to your local audience Refreshed on a regular basis — currency of data is an important online directory ranking factor

• Your highly valuable online directory listing can be created, optimized, distributed and maintained by us — allowing you to reap the rewards of top online directory ranking without the work that would be necessary to manually create, submit and manage your local business data to multiple online directories.

Perhaps even more significant is the number of directories in which your listing appears. We optimize and submit your data to over 90 online directories. Unlike organic optimization, where duplicate content is a problem, multiple iterations of your business data (called citations) will actually improve your ranking on Google Local and other major directories.

As the online directory listings become more competitive — the winners will be those with the oldest listings with the most citations. Getting your listing in now will give you a ‘listing age’ advantage that will help you beat your competition.

Online directories represent a fantastic marketing value for businesses of all types that need to reach customers within a defined local market. Whether your business has one location or thousands — you want to accomplish the same goal — making it easy for local customers to do business with you.

Ready to get started? For an annual subscription of only $299 your local business data is submitted to over 90 online directories.
CLICK HERE.