We live in an age where the only thing faster than technological advancement is the rate at which it’s promoted on the World Wide Web. Tech entrepreneurs must promote their content with cutting-edge technology to stay visible, attract leads, and convert those leads into sales.
Online business directories do a great job of attracting traffic and building a positive image for brands by informing and directing customers to your platform.
1. Are Trade Journals Dead in the Water?
Trade journal listings used to help potential leads reach businesses directly. They were different from search engines in that businesses didn’t have to compete with others for top rank. So, why haven’t they worked since the early nineties?
In an increasingly paperless world, online business directories have become the intangible alternative to trade journals. They offer many of the same benefits in addition to some new ones.
Now, global consumers can find a platform or brand through their handheld devices and gain instant access to the products, services and information a company has to offer. This convenience certainly makes paying for updated hard copy journals seem like a real hassle.
2. Business Directories Rank Higher on Google Search Results
All science and technology platforms begin their digital marketing from the ground up. No one starts from page one, except the ones who list their products and services on online business directories.
Since these directories have been perfecting their search engine optimization (SEO) for quite a while, they probably appear on the first page of sites like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. You can piggyback on their visibility to instantly place your products and services where there are more leads and clicks.
3. Business Directories Reflect Positively Upon Your Platform
Online business directories list several brands and platforms that people know and trust. By featuring alongside these credible sources, you, too, can emerge as a credible authority on the information you are attempting to convey to your readers.
They won’t just see you as another Wikipedia, but as an authentic source of information for insights into technology. If you want to be taken seriously right off the bat, you have to establish the right kind of online reputation, even more so if your business model involves educating the masses.
4. Business Directories Can Target Internationally and Locally
Search Engine Optimization or SEO is the practice of updating and improving a platform to increase visibility whenever people search for services related to your products or services. This visibility gains you more clicks and further improves your SEO ranking on search engines, bringing more traffic to your website.
Your business model may require you to target searches internationally, locally, or both. Online business directories help you save time and resources on the latter by helping you reach your target market regardless of their geographical location.
In other words, you can target both local and international markets and increase traffic to your platform by listing it on a single business directory.
5. Many Online Business Directories are Content-Centric
Several business directories allow businesses with or without websites to create content-rich listings. For instance, if your business model is about propagating information about the latest innovations and breakthroughs in science, you can let the world know about them through your listing.
You can also post a sneak preview and backlink it to a complete version on your own website, thereby increasing traffic and awareness about your platform.
6. Business Directories Promote Expansion
Online business directories attract potential partners and investors to your business. They indirectly aid your expansion efforts and take your business to a whole new level by putting you right in front of an international community of interested individuals and organizations.
It doesn’t hurt to add a touch of B2B to your business model by promoting it through a platform that investors often visit to find businesses with potential. They have previously helped several national companies go international and turned start-ups into parent companies, and they might do the same for your website.
7. Websites are Not a Prerequisite for Online Business Directories
You can list your services and products on an online business directory even if you don’t have a website yet. You can start promoting without a virtual or brick-and-mortar presence right away and update those listings to include links once your website goes live.
This is even better for those planning to run an information platform. You can leave little nuggets of information that your followers can read and absorb before directing them to larger posts once you’ve set up a virtual platform.
8. Online Directories Showcase Business Strengths
Online business directories are like portfolios. They treat every listing as a partner and showcase them front and centre where they’re hard to miss and even harder to ignore. Instead of looking like literal lists, these listings are visually appealing and attract maximum traffic through attractive headlines and thumbnails.
As an education platform, you have to compel leads to tune in and stick around two-minute blogs for two minutes. What better way to do it than by featuring them on an online directory?
9. Online Business Directories Do More for Less
Let’s not overlook the cost-efficiency of online business directories. These platforms exist to boost the exposure of your products and services better than most budget-heavy marketing strategies.
Their affordability isn’t the only reason they’ve persisted in the age of social media. Backlinking indirectly gives these directories a social aspect. By letting you link services to your platform, they help you connect with prospects from all over the globe.
10. Online Business Directories are Here to Stay
Business listings have always been around in some way, shape, or form. Everyone used to have hard copies of local business directories lying around. They went a long way in promoting local services and sectors but didn’t exactly make the world go round.
That’s why they’re all but redundant and replaced by their online counterparts, which expand reach locally and overseas. So, make sure you select a marketing solution that’s here to stay. List your services and sectors on an online business directory, and rise through those search engine ranks, one post at a time.
