Whether you are planning to start a business directory website or you have recently launched one, in order to be successful, online promotion is essential. Promoting a business directory website to reach a wider audience is a multi-tiered process. Most of the advertising methods used by top directories cost nothing more than a little time. You can also drive traffic to your yellow pages site without spending a cent. This article is designed to introduce you to 4 basic methods of promoting yellow pages websites that you should consider to get more traffic to your website.
Creating a popular business directory can be a bit daunting. However, getting it visible is more challenging and complicated. The best way to ensure your directory is visible to the right people is to have it show up on the first page of search engines. But getting your directory to appear (rank high) on the first page of search engines can somewhat impossible. However, promoting or marketing your directory doesn’t have to be complicated. Below are some of the easiest and effective ways to promote your business directory website.
Get links to your directory from other websites
One of the best strategies for getting your website visible is to get other sites linking to your directory. Google assigns a site PageRank by examining the number of other sites linking to it and the overall quality of those sites. This tells search engines the importance of your website and also increase its PageRank; this increases your directory chance of ranking higher in search results.
Put your yellow pages site link in another directory
Putting your directory within a bigger directory is one of the smartest ways of getting quality links. There are numerous search engine directories such as Google’s My Business Directory, Bing’s Places for Business, and Yahoo’s Small Business Directory; these can help improve your online directory SEO stats and also getting it visible.
While putting your directory into larger directories, don’t forget to contact smaller business directories that are similar to yours. Contact them on whether they will be willing to share traffic or list your directory on their site in exchange for a spot on yours. This helps to create relevant links to your site which will improve your PageRank and also creates networking opportunities between businesses.
Advertise your directory online
Running an online advertising campaign is one of the most important ways to promote your website to millions of potential visitors that would never have seen it otherwise. You can use a paid classified Ads or take advantage of free classified Ads to promote and attract potential clients to your business directory. Also, consider taking a visual approach to advertising your directory as it has a great potential to target specific businesses that might want to list with you.
Make use of social media platforms
Establishing a strong social media presence is a vital part of any promotional campaign. Social media promotion is one of the most cost-effective and easy ways to promote your directory website. You can also contact local businesses directly through social media to find those that might want to be listed in your directory. You can make use of Facebook directory pages to search for your target business's contact and announce to them that listings are available.