Almost every company that brings products or services to the market also wants customers to find them online. The days of looking for a new car repair shop, insurance or a specific product, looking for your region and scrolling through the individual entries are gone. Nowadays, almost every search starts with a smartphone or laptop and ideally quickly delivers a meaningful list of companies in the area that can satisfy current wishes and needs. Choose the best restaurant in the area for the evening on TripAdvisor. Check the telephone number of the doctor's office at Das Örtliche and “Alexa, which car repair shop is also open on Saturday? ”. We encounter directory entries, so-called local listings, everywhere in our everyday lives. But where does all this information come from that we can access so easily in the age of voice assistants, Google and smartphones?
Safe information and reviews
In most cases, this information comes first-hand, from the company itself — a secure source, so to speak. Compared to their paper predecessors, they are up to date and easy to adapt. By adding your own company to online directories, you can guarantee that not only customers but also search engines can find the key data easily and reliably. Such information usually includes the company name, address, telephone number, e-mail and usually also your own website. But that's not all, in most cases, business directories offer other benefits, such as a rating function. Whether with test reports, asterisks or likes — the better the reviews, the better the image with potential customers and the ability to be found online. After all, no one has to buy or use anything these days without first having thoroughly informed themselves about the advantages and disadvantages.
Yellow pages 2.0
The majority of users are specifically looking for the perfect provider, broken down by industry and region, and can therefore get a comprehensive picture of the offer on these (comparison) pages and lists. They usually already have a specific product or service in mind that they would like to purchase. Entries in directories not only help you find the right provider, but getting there is also child's play thanks to local listings. Because providers can also be found regionally in navigation systems and location services such as Google Maps or Apple Maps. This is particularly important as more and more customers are looking for providers in the area, even on the go. As a company, you should therefore not only offer mobile-friendly websites, but also be displayed via the directories in the search results of map services.
The right directory for everyone
There are hardly any limits when it comes to choosing the right directory and the options on the individual platforms. Regardless of whether you want to use classic business directories such as the Yellow Pages, search engines such as Google and Bing, or voice assistants such as Amazon Alexa or Siri — to what extent you want to use these local listings is entirely up to the user. However, there are already IT systems that can be used to jointly manage the many individual directory entries. This ensures that even with entries on 100 different platforms and directories, the information can always be updated on a daily basis and with little effort. In addition, users can directly view and respond to reviews. All in all, online business directories offer a simple and quick measure to increase findability online and provide customers with particularly easy access to their own website and the associated information.