Free business advertising, Free small business SEO & marketing tools
Backlinks to your website are essential. Having a safe link building profile is more essential. In this blog we will discuss one more sources of building safe backlinks for your website, directory submission.
Business directories are often overlooked and thought to be spammy, but if done properly these are great untapped sources of backlinks plus exposure for your business improving local citations at the same time.
What are Free Business Listings?
Wikipedia describes free business listings directories as huge databases that list websites based on relevant business categories and subcategories. Most free directories take up the whole website submitted into one category or niche rather than individual pages or post.
For example, if you have a blog in blogging niche but do write one or two articles on social media, your blog will be categorized to blogging niche rather than both.
Most blog directories are free to enroll, but some paid ones also do exist which have perks of their own.
Always see what the paid options are, many are very cost effective and yield far better results, not just for SEO but lead generation, for example our paid featured listings are just £49 per year and yield 30 times the site exposure to free listings!!
Small Business SEO Benefits – What is Free Directory Submission in SEO?
Free online listings and paid business submission is the process of listing your website to various online business directories or free listings directories under the correct category or sub category for your business. Be sure to submit your business website or social page under the most appropriate category to take the full advantage of the directory submission. Check this directory submission process:
What is the Use of Business Directory Submission in Small Business SEO & SEO For Startup Businesses?
Local business directories & national free business listings make your blog visible beyond the realms of your own social media and online circle. Here are some of the benefits of adding free and paid directory listings that make the process far more successful.
1) Get quality and safe backlinks from free business listings:
Most local directories are manually supervised for any wrong submissions. Hence, these sites are spam free and are a potential source of building SEO friendly backlinks. Our directories for example follow this process to keep the quality high, remove spam and ensure you get maximum SEO gain from free and paid listings.
2) Getting massive exposure:
Let’s face it. Your audience is the key to your businesses online existence. You have your own set of audience from a particular demographic or geographic area. How about crossing those limits and getting seen by an even larger audience by category or geographic area by local directory submission? Makes sense right?
Business directories display your site for every related search query on their database. That means more chances of getting noticed by audiences that would otherwise have no idea on your blog.
3) Chances of getting review requests or paid post opportunities:
Some web directories are so active and because these directories are popular and usually have quality blog submissions these are the best (and easiest) places for businesses to look for paid review postings.
Since you are a member of these directories your website is visible to these brands. The chances are higher you get business opportunities from them like sponsored reviews or banner advertisements on your blog.
4) Increase in websites lead generation:
Considering the above facts, we can say that obtaining free business listings in business directories can help you in getting review requests. Moreover, they increase chances of your website getting discovered so you have an increased audience base. More potential audience = more leads.
Start Up Edge offer free SEO advice for small businesses, check out https://www.startupedge.co.uk
How to do Free Business Listings Submission for SEO?
Now that we know what blog directories are and how they can help us in blogging, not signing up would be a mistake. So here are some simple steps to get your business listing submitted to various blog directories and make backlinks.
Step:1 .
Before submitting your business listings here is a simple task to perform. This will actually help in easy submission without much hassle.
- Create a notepad file and save the following there.
- Your websites URL,
- Your blog’s RSS feed URL,
- Your social profile links.
- And a brief excerpt describing your site. This is VERY important, content will be a factor when people search the directory so take your time to write a good description of what your business does, the areas your cover and the benefits of using your business
Step: 2 Enter as much information about your business, don’t rush, remember this is a free business listing but it will be viewed by your potential customers so quality counts
Step: 3 Suppose you choose a directory named Free business listings.
Step: 4 Choose a relevant category for your submission. If a free business listing directory has “tags” use as many as your can as they will help people find you when they search and improve SEO
Step: 5 Fill in the details from the notepad file you just created.
Step: 6 Submit.
Certain tips for safe playing:
- Do not submit your site to the wrong category, paid listings will give you more choice on categories and tags
- Submit your site to the most accurate category and add correct tags
- Do not spam a directory with rubbish, keep it professional and descriptive
- Do not provide wrong physical address, this will harm your SEO and local citations
- Do not prefer submitting to a site that requires reciprocal link back or banners on your site. Having badges and sitewide linkbacks to the directories may harm your site’s SEO score. So stay safe.
Over to you
I would always say submitting to free business listings directories is a must and SEO friendly way to get backlinks. Even if we ignore this aspect, there are huge chances of getting your website or business discovered by audiences that otherwise would have never come across your blog.
Therefore, I suggest getting listed in at least a few quality free business listings directories for SEO benefits
Where you can get free small business listings in the UK?
National Free Business Listing Sites:
Free Business Advertising – Simply named Free Business Advertising this website has 46 local business directories that offer free business listings, and listings of small businesses for sale. The sign up process is very easy and unlike many business directories the free business listings are really nice quality, not just basic text and the websites are professional and business orientated. The site can be found at https://freeads.me.uk .
Iwebdirectory is sponsored by Franchise UK, the UK’s largest franchise opportunities UK directory with over 1,000 franchises for sale and information about franchise associations uk and franchise exhibitions.