How to Build Your Offline Business with Online Local Directories
Every offline business wants more customers. That’s why you hang signs in your window and
outside your door, to attract people’s attention and entice them to come in.
But if you are focusing solely on the people who walk past every day, you’re missing out on the huge
market that constantly looks for services online. There are 300 million internet searches performed
every day and a whopping 3 billion of them are performed on a monthly basis! About half of these
people are looking for local businesses to buy from. The question is whether or not they can find
YOU.
This is why it’s worth spending some time making sure you are listed in as many online local
directories as possible. Don’t restrict yourself to the people who are already walking down your
street. Get yourself listed online in some of these directories and you can reel in people from
further afield as well. Just imagine – there are people out there who are driving around trying to
find a business just like yours. If you’re listed online they have the ability to find you immediately.
And, if you have more than one location you can list them all so they can find the one nearest to
where they are.
An offline business can list all the important information quite easily online. Your business name,
address, phone number and location can all be listed. If someone searches for your kind of business
online, they’ll find you on search engines, online directories and local directories of all kinds. You
can also make it easy for them to find you on social networking sites, which means you don’t even
have to have a website. Simply link to your Facebook or LinkedIn profile or whatever other social
network you belong to.
In this way people can find you by using their computers or even their cell phones. Once they’ve got
your details they can find you with their mobile or GPS navigation devices. Could you imagine how
many more customers you might get as a result of listing your business in these local directories?
You won’t have to worry about customers finding incorrect information if you happen to change
phone numbers or locations for some reason either. Quick changes are easy to make in order to
keep your listing accurate. When you consider that most of these directories are free to use as well,
you’d be missing a trick if you didn’t use them. The only reason you would pay to use some of them
is if you wanted to have an enhanced listing to gain more visibility.
The majority of offline business owners know how important advertising is to keep their business
going. But you don’t want to spend more than necessary to get the results you want. These
directories not only reduce PPC costs, they also reduce your overall advertising costs. So not only
can you increase your revenue from being more visible to more customers, you can also do it for less
cash.
What kind of savings are we talking about here? Well, think about the amount you spend on your
print advertising every month. Whatever that amount might be, you’ll be spending a lot less getting
listed in hundreds of local directories online. These listings not only bring you direct traffic, they can
also provide you with a way to brand your business on a consistent basis.
Having a website isn’t necessary to enjoy all these benefits. But if you do have one you can get a
one-way link back to that site further strengthening your position and credibility, especially with
Google, with the search engines.
The best thing about being listed in every appropriate directory is that your customers can review
your business online too. Monitor the feedback and respond to it quickly, making changes in your
organizations for the better as you do. As you gain more feedback and reviews you’ll find you get
ranked more highly in Google Places as well, so you’ll be found even more often.
The only question that’s left is why you haven’t already started listing your business with all the
online local directories?
© 2010 Davis Virtual Assistance. Publication rights granted so long as article and byline are reprinted
intact, with all links made live.
Bonnie Jo Davis submits and manages local business listings. She is a published author, expert in
article marketing and feels comfortable working in a virtual environment. If you need help getting
your business into local directories visit http://local-map-listings.com/services-2/local-directory-
submission.