Keeping up with marketing technology is a daunting prospect for small business owners, and anything you can do to enhance your business presence online offers many benefits. Online directory listings are valuable, easy to set up and most of them are free.
At any one time, more than 50% of New Zealanders are online looking for services and recommendations.
Recently I tried to track someone down to fix the alarm at our house. I knew the name of the guy who had installed the alarm but no contact details. For the next half hour I searched online for this business and finally gave up as I had exhausted all avenues (this guy missed out on our business… and probably lots more as well).
Attracting new customers for your business will always be an ongoing challenge!
If you have a good reputation, give good service resulting in satisfied customers, you will get referrals.
Here are some ideas you can easily implement to improve your business visibility.
The ideal situation would be to have your own branded website. But if you don’t have a website your business can still be found high up in Google search results.
In today’s business landscape, having an accurate and current local directory listing for your business is a must. Local listings are a portal that contain relevant details for your business such as: business name, contact details, hours of operation, photos, and often customer reviews and ratings.
Many of the local listings like Google My Business play an integral role in local search and Google will favour large directories for specific searches on location and business niche.
Here’s something you can do to see if your business shows up online.
For example, if you are a plumber, search for ‘plumbers Whakatane’. Have a look on the left side (top three results are often paid ads). If your own website is showing up, congratulations! Otherwise, you will find the top results will be some of the large national directories. This is your opportunity to be found quickly and easily by people looking for your services.
Here are six of the best online directories where you can list your business for free.
Google My Business: https://www.google.com/business/
Yellow: https://yellow.co.nz/
Finda: https://www.finda.co.nz/
Localist: https://www.localist.co.nz/my-localist/listings/additions/new
Another good resource:
Chamber of Commerce – offer good opportunities to network with other business owners. https://www.newzealandchambers.co.nz/
Adding your business details is quick and easy and I would encourage you to do this as each listing is another opportunity to get your business and services in front of more people.
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