Have you been told that online directories, like YP.com (Yellow Pages) or Yelp are becoming outdated? The answer is no, on the contrary, they are gaining more strength than ever and have begun to grow exponentially offering not only their business information, but are now your virtual sellers and many times more efficient than your sales manager.
An example only takes a button, as we see what happened with TripAdvisor, which went from being a simple directory where people left a rating to the service provider to becoming a judge that takes those who are listening very seriously. This has raised the standards of service providers to live up to what they seek to promote.
After creating this new standard of quality and measurement of service (many owners of hotels and restaurants take it very seriously), they have now dedicated themselves to selling the packages and services they themselves qualify for, creating a new ecosystem of clients within this scheme of work where the community really interacts with the service provider.
Another example is found in Angieslist.com, a page that appears as a generic directory of service providers such as plumbers, gardeners, painters, etc. After a while, it specialized in giving ratings and through the platform today you can get the quote and directly hire the person with a preferential price.
Online directories are beneficial to the food and beverage industry
New platforms for the food and beverage industry are not far from this scheme of work, since if your business is in a directory, it will help customers to find you more quickly, to see how to get to it on a map, or see the comments of your clients. Most of the listings, especially local directories, are free subscription by a basic profile and with that, you have enough to be able to have greater visibility on the networks.
Of course, more is better, so the higher the number of listings where your brand or business may be, the better the performance in the search processes within Google or Yahoo, as these give relevance to the businesses between number of mentions from other websites.
The local chambers of commerce are also an excellent source for business directories to post your complete profile, where those from your community and the same business industry can easily see what you are doing.
Finally, we recommend to always keep your website updated, with dynamic platforms that have fresh content. A majority of business people create their own platform once and think that is enough. Technology updates every day and so do websites, styles and formats, but the most important thing is updated information that you can update constantly.