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Business Directories: The Place To List Your Local Small Business When Looking For Local CustomersOne of the oldest and most effective ways to market yourself online is through local small business directory listings. Small business Internet marketing requires starting with a listing of your small business in the major general directories then listing them in niche and industry-specific directories appropriate to your small business. It is a time consuming process to list your small business in the right directories, but a necessary one to ensure good rankings for your website. The most essential directory for your small business to be listed in is DMOZ, also called the Open Directory Project. All the major search engines, and most of the minor ones, rely on DMOZ, located at www.dmoz.org, for information on websites. Google gets information on every website it crawls from DMOZ. You should also list your small business in Google Local and Yahoo Local. All you need to do to get listed with Google is to go to Google, click on the Local link and find the "add your business link." For Yahoo, go to Yahoo, click on "Directory," then click on "Submit Your Site" at the bottom of the page. You can find other directories online by using Google or Yahoo. Type in "directory of directories" and you'll get a list of small business directories, both paid and free, listed by state, industry, niche, and other categorizations. I recommend that you list in every directory that applies to your business. Here is a short list of local small business directory opportunities to help you attract local customers for your business: http://www.dmoz.org Some directories, like the Yahoo directory, charge, but it is well worth what you pay to be listed. Once you are included in Yahoo's small business directory, you can bet your website will be indexed in the search engine as well. There are three primary considerations for your small business when listing in directories online: The directory's PageRank The directory's age Is your small business category available? PageRank is important for SEO purposes. Internet marketing pros all recommend getting inbound links from websites with high PR. A website with a PR higher than yours will benefit you with valuable inbound links that will give you a boost in the search engines as well. The age of the directory makes it more valuable because you know that if the directory has been around for more than two years then it will likely be around next year. You can get information on PageRank and the age of various directories at http://www.seocompany.ca/directory/web-directories.html. Don't waste your time trying to get listed in a directory that doesn't offer a category you'll fit into. Be sure to browse the categories at any small business directories you consider before you list your business. Two great sources for finding web directories for your small business Internet marketing efforts are www.dir-search.com and www.best-web-directories.com. The Best Web Directories website is perhaps the most comprehensive website for finding business directories online. If you want to find local customers through small business directories then I recommend these two resources for finding the best places online that list small business directories for your Internet marketing efforts. One thing you'll need to keep in mind – all directories are different. Nevertheless, you should write your business directory listing before you submit to any directories. Your local small business directory listing shouldn't be too long, but it should include all the pertinent information: Your business name, your name, address, phone number, website address, e-mail address, and a short description of your business. In your business directory listing, be sure to use the best keyword two or three times to make your small business listing optimized for the search engines. To find industry-specific or niche directories, go to DMOZ or one of the other general directories and search for your industry by keyword. Then do a keyword search at Google and Yahoo along with the keyword "directory." This should return a good listing of directories for your industry or niche. One other source for listing your local small business is the local chamber of commerce's website. When you join your local chamber, they should list your website on theirs for free. The traffic you can get from this one source can be well worth joining the local chamber, and almost all of the traffic will be local customers looking for your type of business. The Yellow Pages online and www.merchantcircle.com are two other sources to consider for local small business Internet marketing. More and more people are looking online for small businesses to do business with and relying less on print publications like the Yellow Pages. That's just one more reason to look for local small business directories to be listed in. Other articles by this author »
About Caroline Melberg
Caroline Melberg is President and CEO of Melberg Marketing. She has over 20 years of experience creating exciting marketing campaigns for some of the most successful companies in the world. She publishes the popular eZine, "Blue Chip Tips: The Secrets of Blue Chip Marketing...Revealed!" Learn more today at http://www.melberg.com. Related
And here is another random article you might be interested in... Setting Financial Goals, The First Step In Turning Your Dreams Into RealitySetting financial goals is the single most important thing you can do to take control of your finances. Your life can't go according to plan if you don't have a plan. You will continue to spend every penny you earn if you don't plan for where you want that money to go. Now more than ever we have to plan for our own futures. Approximately 70 million baby boomers will reach retirement age within the next 10 years. That is going to put an enormous strain on the already strained social security system. Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, has stated that in order to keep this strained system going, the retirement age will have to be raised or the benefits will have to be cut back. The ever ballooning Federal Deficit is the main cause. It would be my guess that both of those things will happen and more. If social security is even around in another ten to twenty years, I'll be surprised. The government's plans for it are kind of up in the air right now. The President would like to have us invest our own contributions. I would imagine that a program like that will take quite a bit of time and money to set up. If you are looking at those social security statements you get every year a few months before your birthday, and making that part of your future financial planning by expecting that money to be there, you could be left holding an empty bag when you reach retirement age. There was a time when our parents and grand parents could survive on their pension and social security and have it pretty good. Especially, if their homes were paid off. This is no longer true. Many companies do not give pensions anymore, they have 401K plans instead. Due to inflation and an increasing amount of consumer credit card debt, many people do not contribute as much as they should or they make withdrawals when the have a problem come up. It is for this reason that setting financial goals and having a plan to work toward, is so important. You need to set short term, medium term and long term goals. The short term goal might be paying down your credit card debt, the medium term goal might be planning that family vacation you've always dreamed about but could never afford because of the debt, the long term goal might be a certain dollar amount set aside for retirement or that piece of property that you want to build the home you want to retire to on. In order to start setting goals you need to ask yourself some questions. You also need to be realistic. If you set the goals too high at the beginning, you won't stick with it. You can always raise each goal and set new ones as you reach them. You won't do that if you set them too high at the beginning and then give up because they were totally unrealistic and unreachable. If setting goals in new to you and you don't have any idea where to start, get a piece of paper out and make a wish list. Again, be as realistic as possible. If you are only making minimum wage and your wish is to buy a BMW or a Jaguar in the next year and you already have other expenses, it's not going to happen unless you also plan on increasing your income. When you are making your wish list, you should also write down in how many years you would like to see it happen and approximately how much money it will take to fulfill this wish. Then decide the order of importance of your list. Which wish you would like to work on first, next etc. If you are single, this is your starting point. If you are married or have a partner, you should both work on your own lists. Then you should compare them and make compromises so you can both get as much of what you want as possible. Then work on the order in which you will work on these goals. The most important step in setting goals is implementing them. Making a list is fine, but if you stick it in a drawer with your paperwork and forget about it, it won't do you any good. They have to be something that you really want and are willing to make changes and adjustments in your life in order to set money aside for them. A dream will always be just a dream if you don't have a plan of action to turn it into a goal and then to make that goal a reality. You need to keep that list with you or keep it where you can see it a few times a day. Look at it as often as possible. Keep thinking of where you are now and where you want to be in the future. Think about what it's going to take to get there and the ways that you can accomplish those goals. You don't get a promotion or a raise at work without putting in the effort to prove you deserve it. Your dreams will not turn into reality if you put them someplace and forget about them. You have to be willing to put the time, effort and motivation that you use in other things into making your financial goals come true. You can face your financial future and make it better. Whether your finances are in okay shape and you would like them to be better or whether you are having temporary difficulties. You just need to have a plan and the determination and desire to follow it through. Part II of this article is going to cover questions you need to think about to start the goal process and more questions you should consider when you are starting to implement your goals into your budget. If you don't wish to wait for Part Two you can read more about setting financialk goals here: http://www.yourdollarsandsense-budgets.com/setting-goals.html Other articles by this author »
About Teresa Kaufman
Teresa Kaufman Related
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