Greener Business Bureau

Archive for the ‘Business directory’ Category

Local business listings began with a basic business directory more than a decade ago. Chances are, your business has a local listing wherever you have a physical address location. Check it out — go to Google, type in your company name. You’ll probably see a map locating your business and an address. Of course all you may find other information too. Local business listings are treated passively by many businesses. But that could be a mistake. You’ve probably read that prospects have something specific in mind when they are shopping. So try this test. Go back to Google, type in the name of a product or service your business provides plus your hometown. Did your business show up? If it did: congratulations. If it did not: you’re missing a major marketing opportunity.

Times have changed
From a marketing standpoint, the use of local business listings has exploded with the increase of social media and mobile devices. Consumers not only use these interactive yellow pages to locate a business, product or service in their area; they are also posting reviews of those products and services. Today, there are over 60 local business listing websites on the Internet in five different categories. They include the search engines, social communities, 411 websites (aka yellow page type websites), GPS websites and that age-old business directory.

You can no longer be passive
To make your interactive yellow pages listing a stronger marketing tool, you must first “claim” the listing with all the search engines, social communities, websites and organizations that lead people to it. Once you prove the listing is really yours you can update it with your business marketing material. Businesses are realizing the importance of this claiming process. Once you have claimed your local listing you can update information with text, keywords, business descriptions, products, services, photos, videos, coupons, and more. Some websites, such as Google, allow you to use all these options while others charge a fee for enhanced listings making this information present for local consumers through web or mobile searches

So what’s the “security challenge”?
The claiming process is crucial to security because if the wrong person gets access to your business local listing they can direct customers to a different location by phone or website address. Additional damage can include incorrect information on photos, videos, coupons, and more. Because consumers are using local business listings to locate a business, product or service in their immediate area, the security around local business listings must have a high priority for any local listing website.

Remember phishing?
Phishing was described in 1987 before the Internet was a commercial boom. The first recorded use of phishing was in1996. The question is whether the business industry is going to wait for something similar to occur using Local Business Listings. The security holes are quite evident with Local Business Listings and I don’t think it takes a genius see what could happen if businesses do not “claim” their listings – the first step in closing those “holes.”

When hackers capture a Local Listing it’s called “high-jacking”
It is absolutely important that businesses not passively wait for local listing websites to put the appropriate security in place before you claim your listing. Installing security starts with the obvious claiming process, but many sites allow data to be inserted from other databases on the Internet and I am not sure there’s good security around this later process. If someone wanted to hijack a local business listing, they could easily insert the wrong information through a low level business directory that sells its data upstream or inserts its data directly into a higher level local listing website.

While the top search engines like Bing, Google and Yahoo have “some” front-end security; their API’s (Application Programming Interface) makes them vulnerable through the back door. Data is provided to their local listings from 3rd party sources including “get listed” services. Additionally, if someone cannot claim a listing easily, the process within these local listing websites allows for additional listings with the same address to be submitted by anyone.

1. SHOPPING CENTRES – Some of us love to shop, others just do it out of necessity, but if you’re looking for big high-street stores, then a shopping centre is exactly what you need.

2. RESTAURANTS – Looking for somewhere to get a romantic meal? How about somewhere that can accommodate the family for birthday celebrations? A local business directory can help you find the perfect venue.

3. TAXIS – Whether you’re going on a big night out and need help getting to and from town, heading to the airport or just looking to get across town, a taxi is often the best option for transportation.

4. PHOTOGRAPHERS – If you’re a business looking for a photographer to help with a specific job or a family wanting a portrait, there are sure to be many kinds available in your region.

5. SOLICITORS – You may need legal advice after suffering a personal injury, because of an employment dispute or because you’re getting divorced. A business directory can help.

6. HAIRDRESSERS – Searching for a brand new look? Once you have, you’ll require a hair salon to make it a reality.

7. BEAUTY SALONS – Why stop at hair? You could also treat yourself to a full make-over with a broad range of beauty treatments.

8. THEATRES AND CONCERT HALLS – If you like shows of any kind, then your local theatres and halls will be a great place to see what’s on.

9. PLUMBERS – If you have pipe-related problems in your home, then you’re going to need a plumber very quickly. A directory will help you choose a reliable professional.

10. ELECTRICIANS – Like with plumbers, electrical problems in the home need to be dealt with immediately. Expertise, reliability and price may all need to be checked out first.

If you’re looking for any of these type of companies and a lot more besides, then a local business directory can help. For instance, if you need to look through Glasgow plumbers, a Glasgow directory may be the answer.

Drop shipping is gaining momentum among online sellers and retailers. It has continued to attract an increasing number of online entrepreneurs and has built a wider base of online sellers and retailers willing. These entrepreneurs are taking advantage of what these drop shippers can offer while at the same time depend on various online business resources in their choice of drop shipping suppliers. Mostly, they register with Salehoo and avail of its widely popular list of wholesalers and drop shippers.

There are some sectors in the online selling industry that frown at the idea of having to employ and work with suppliers offering drop shipping capabilities. This hesitation on the part of some sectors could be attributed to a lack of understanding about the benefits of the system. It is well noted that a great number of online sellers, retailers, including eBay power sellers, are working with qualified and reliable drop shipping suppliers. These are a new breed of suppliers who commit themselves to help promote online selling by undertaking certain functions which are ordinarily performed by the sellers and retailers. In this kind of arrangement, the suppliers retain possession and custody of the supplies. While the sellers display these goods in their respective online shops, they do not as yet pay for these goods. Payment is made only when an online purchase is made by a buyer. The online seller accepts the payment and orders the supplier to deliver the purchased item directly to the buyer. The purchased goods, in other words, no longer pass through the hands of the seller since these are now directly delivered to the buyers. The seller then pays the supplier the agreed amount, retaining the difference as his profit. Certainly, working with drop shippers makes the business simpler and easy to manage. It also reduces operating costs. Additionally, working with a host of drop shippers will allow the seller to start his business despite limited capital exposure.

Evidently, most online sellers are working with one or more drop shippers. This development is well exemplified by an increasing number of online sellers joining Salehoo in their search for dependable drop shippers. As an online business directory, Salehoo’s list is highly regarded and is considered as the best source of reputable drop shippers.

In the present online world, you will find a number of directories that provide information of different types. Nowadays, such directories are available for the people as per their requirements. They cover various subjects that include online business, hosting and many others. In these directories, you can find listings of businesses that are dealing in a specific area. A business directory features a complete list of businesses both online and offline. Many businesses look for the directories when they do not find services and products through their own businesses.

In order to enlist your services to a good business directories, you need to keep some points in your mind, so that you can take advantage without spending much time on searching. A business directory should be informative and useful with a suitable presentation. It should be well prepared and well managed so that it is easy for the people to navigate. To offer the best services to customers, update your directory on a regular basis. So, choose a directory that is placed on the top ranking of major search engines. For direct customers, online business directory is very beneficial as it provides them with all the relevant information at once.

In case, they want to make an online purchase, these online directories can give them a wide variety of choices. A buyer or a customer can easily browse through the services of so many registered service providers and select the best among them. Besides, offering a list of the online service providers, this online business directory provides many other things as well. It also includes useful business tips, links to business shows and online business news and business advices from the experts. These specialists give their suggestions on topics like business promotion, process and cost effectiveness. An online b2b directory is also a best guide that offers solutions for your business problems.

Unquestionably, a business directory is like a one-stop shop place where one can get answers to all their queries related to online business as well as other business related issues.

Writing a business plan for an online business directory is as important as writing a business plan for any type of business. A proper plan is essential to making an online directory a success. This will outline the type of business directory you will be running and how you will make it profitable. Below are a number of tips to writing a business plan for an online business directory.

1. The plan should outline your strategies on how you will make the directory a money generator. It will detail how the directory will work and how you will maintain profitability. It will also help you plan for unexpected obstacles, such as if one method of acquiring business listing does not work, how you will modify the strategy to make it more effective. It is important to regularly update your business plan to maintain competitiveness. Create short and long term goals and establish time frames for achieving specific tasks and set goals, such as the number of businesses that will post their listing in a week, or in a month.

2. The mission statement is a blueprint to having successful directories. It should define your values and objectives to maintaining competitiveness in the marketplace. It is important that you outline how you understand your target audience, including their needs and wants and how your directory will meet them. It must detail how you will attract customers to list their businesses.

3. You must detail your understanding of your competitors and how your directory will be unique and stand apart from your competitors’ directories. For instance, will yours fill a particular niche market? You need to outline your promotion plan and how you will implement your marketing strategies. You need to create a strategy that gives you a competitive edge.

4. You need to detail a comprehensive financial plan. You have to include such information as advertising and promotion costs and the expected revenue you will generate. You should outline all of the methods and programs you will use to effectively monetize your directory. This can include affiliate programs, offering paid listings…etc. You should create an effective budget that is practical and takes hidden or unexpected costs into consideration. You will need to break down your expenses and revenue to make sure you have a plan that generates more revenue that money paid out.

Starting a new online business directory can seem overwhelming as there are so many online directories on the internet. To stand out from the others, you need a strategic plan, clearly defined objectives, clear promotion and marketing plan, and a practical budget. It will help minimize the risks and maximize the benefits. A general guide on writing a business plan for an online business directory is helpful when planning to build a successful online business directory, but it is essential that you do your research and consult with others to make sure your business plan is a blueprint to success.

Starting an online business directory can be pretty easy, but if you have no clue of where and how to start then by reading this article it will help you to get started.

Step One:

The first thing you need to know about starting a business directory online is what is your target market going to be, in other words what kind of businesses do you eventually want to include in your new business directory.

If you already have a current business online or offline then you will already know your target market, and you can move forward to step two in this article.

However, if you have no idea what your target market will be, then you will need to do some research, I would recommend starting a business directory about something popular and which is going to earn you an income down the road or. That will gradually help grow your current business.

Here are some very popular and profitable niches for an online business directory you could start.

1: RealEstate Directory

2: Travel Directory

3: Online Dating Directory

4: Automotive Directory

5: Fashion Directory

There are so many more and to find them just go to eBay.com or Amazon.com and see what is popular on those sites, or you could go to Google and do a search for keyword terms like “Hot Niches” or “Popular Niches” or “Popular Business” get the idea..

Then after you have decided on the niche for your new business directory, you will need to either buy or register your domain name.

Step Two:

Buying or registering the right domain name for your new online business directory will be the most important thing, so you need to make sure you get this correct from the start.

A good domain name should be no longer than two to three words, and it should contain the name of the niche and the word directory in it and should always be a .com if you can help it other wise you should go for the .net domain if the .com for the domain you want is already taken and is not for sale.

Therefore, for example if I was going to start a new business directory about the niche real estate the ideal domain name would be RealEstateDirectory.com or RealEstateDirectory.net but all good domain names like this have already been taken, but they may be up for sale so just visit the website and see.

If you find the domain name is not for sale then you could also try adding a dash between the two words.. Like this RealEstate-Directory.com or RealEstate-Directory.net and see if they have been taken or not, and if they are taken see if they are for sale.

If you have to go with a three word domain name you could enter something like your town or city name in front of the domain so it could be.. Like this NewYorkRealEstateDirectory.com or NewYorkRealEstateDirectory.net and see if it has been taken.

A great free online resource I have found to help brain storm a new domain name and see if they have been taken or not is RegistrarStats.com, give them a try.

Once you have found the domain name for your new online business directory it is time to register it, I recommend Godaddy.com for this as they are the cheapest and offer the best services.

Step Three:

Now that you have got your domain name for your new online business directory it is time to find a hosting company, and I have tried many and the best I have found is SeoHosting.com which is owned by HostGator.com, and they have been around for a very long time and they have thousands of happy customers.

Step Four:

Now that you have got your hosting account for your new online business directory it is time to build the directory.

Now you could do this a number of different ways but it all comes down to the amount of money you wish to spend.

If money is not an option for you, then I would recommend hiring a PHP coder from a website like RentaCoder.com or ScriptLance.com or eLance.com and get them to build a custom solution for you, this way you will make your new business directory stand out from all the other cookie cutter directories that are online these days using an off the shelf PHP directory script.

Don’t get me wrong there is nothing wrong with these types of scripts, and we use one our self for our own Link Directory, but we have gone a step further and have had a custom template created for our directory which has turned out to be a very good investment.

The directory script we use and recommend if you are on a very limited starting budget is PhpLinkDirectory.com.

Step Five:

Now we come to the final step and which is promoting your new business directory, this can be done with or without spending money.

I will list five free options and five paid options below you can start to help get the word out about your directory.

Free Options:

1: Join online forums and discussion groups related to your new business directory and make a post inviting business owners to list their website/business in your directory for free or at a discounted rate.

2: This one is related to 1: make sure you add a Sig line linking to your directory in all the posts you make in the forums you have joined.

3: Submit your business directory to other free link directories online, just do a search in Google for the key word Link Directory.

4: Link to your business directory from your other websites that you already own or run this way the search engines will find your directory and index it.

5: Send out and email to friends or customers and ask them to link back to your business directory and in exchange link back to their website from your directory if it is relevant.

Paid Options:

1: Start a Google Adwords campaign to instantly start driving traffic to your business directory, but be careful because if you do not know what you are doing with Adwords you could end up spending a lot of money without any results.

2: Buy some paid links from other websites or directories that are similar to your own business directory.

3: Submit your business directory to the Yahoo directory at a cost of $299 per year. Being listed in the yahoo directory will make your directory more creditable in the eyes of the search engines and your visitors.

4: Buy some advertising in offline news papers if your directory targets businesses in your local area.

5: Buy banner ads on other websites that relate to your business directory and try and to negotiate for a 6-12 month period because your can greatly reduce you’re over all banner advertising costs.