With everything moving online, the days of looking up businesses in hardcopies of the Yellow Pages and trade journals are just about over. Today’s searchers use Google and trusted online business directories to find the companies they want to work with – which is why adding your organization to these lists is often crucial for being noticed in the digital era, especially for specialized industries. There are often dozens of different online directories for specific niches, industries, and regions, and the more your organization’s name appears on those lists, the more opportunity you have to be noticed and contacted. There are many directory listing services that offer free listing.

To help make the case why your business needs to be listed in online directories relevant to your industry, we explain why these directories are so beneficial.

Key Benefits of Online Directories

1. Increase Your Discoverability

Online directories are one of the first places today’s buyers look when they need to find a supplier/partner/provider. By maximizing your visibility in these directories, you maximize your chances to be contacted by prospective buyers. Many business directory services also furnish businesses with review forms to collect and display reviews to prospective clients/customers. Reviews have been proven to increase patronage by more than 40%.

2. Improve Your SEO

While directories can help provide backlinks to your site (with some being better than others), their biggest SEO benefit is providing a new listing in Google for every listing in a directory. Whenever someone searches for your company name online, your directory listings can appear in the results and help point them back to your site. Our free business listing service allows you to not just list your services/products but you also get to link to your website (If you have ) from your listing page. This has a very positive say on your SEO.

3. Strengthen Your Reputation

The internet has had an immeasurable impact on the discoverability of emerging businesses. With all the different options available, today’s buyers are extra cautious about which vendors they can trust online. This is where online directories can be extremely helpful, as they’re often seen as a reliable source for high-quality, trustworthy businesses. Having your company in these directories shows you aren’t a shell company hiding behind a fancy website, but rather a company that’s serious about what they do. Many directories even have customer review areas, which can really help strengthen your reputation and convince other prospects to buy.

Why not give it a try? There are many business listing services that offer free listing, check out our forever free listing package now!