Large well known directory websites– Don’t be fooled!
Well known large directories have had their day, and they know it, why else would they be resorting to a multi-million pound media advertising campaign for their websites service?
If they had any clue at all about what their business customers needed they would have done this 10 years ago. But no, they went down the road of attracting customers to their Directory service for all these years instead, and I use the term “attracting” very loosely. From first hand experience and from what my clients have told me, they are very good at promising the world in their sales calls. Only problem is they never back up their claims. Let me get this in very early on…. If you are thinking about paying for a large directory company to design your website in the hope it will bring you business from the internet, then think again.
Let me get something else out there early, and I really hope people take notice of this….
Said well known large directories have absolutely NO “Special partnership” with Google for organic search results
The ONLY partnership they have with Google is with regards to paid listings (sponsored ads). They do have a partnership with Google, which allows them to sell advertising space, but that is it. They have no partnership with Google for organic search, nobody does. However this is the type of hard-sell tactics you will get from your “well known directories” sales rep and the unfortunate thing is that it is too late for a lot of businesses, they have already been suckered into a 12 month contract due to this false claim.
“Well known directories” websites – The low-down
Most people see these directories and automatically think, “they’re a massive multi-billion pound company, they don’t need to rip me off”, oh how wrong they are!
Large Business Directories all rely heavily on their reputation to convince customers to pay them ridiculous amounts of money for their products, and they pay it, they take their word as gospel and ask no questions. Don’t fall into this trap. Just because they are a huge brand doesn’t mean that they know what they are doing and more importantly, it certainly doesn’t mean that they give two hoots about your business and whether you get any business from the terrible website they sell to you. Nothing could be further from the truth.
“Well known directories” websites – worth the money?
So what exactly do you get with a “well known large directories” website and why is it such a bad deal? Surely such a big company will provide you with a fantastic service that will see customers vising your site in their droves, right? Well, no, not exactly.
So what do they promise, let’s see…
- A five (or more) page website
- Everything done for you including text etc
- They will update it for you, saving you time
- They will register a local domain name on your behalf
Let’s look at this further and see if what you get really is as good as the aggressive sales person says:
- A Five page website– What they don’t tell you is that the design you get is terrible and the coding behind it is even worse, to the extent that it may even harm your natural search rankings.
- Everything done for you including text– Just have a look online for “well known directory” websites and narrow it down by industry. What you will find is that they use recycled content on these websites meaning that any number of your competitors can have almost identical text on their site. Google frowns upon “Duplicate content” and again, this will harm your search rankings.
- They will update it for you– Of course they will, at a price. Each and every time you want to make a change to your website you had better be prepared to pay a small fortune.
- Register a domain on your behalf– Cool, but you will never own that domain, the well known directory will own it. You are simply renting it from them. If you leave them you will have a hard job taking your domain name with you.
“Well known directory” websites are so badly designed and optimised that I’ve NEVER come across one in any searches I have carried out.
They employ very poor design techniques, which hinder search rankings, and more worryingly they use SEO tactics from the Stone Age, most of which go against Google’s webmaster guidelines. These sites are light on content and rammed with keywords (keyword stuffing), tactics that haven’t worked for years. Overall, these sites are ineffective, expensive, poorly designed and poorly optimised…
So are “well known directory” websites worth the money? – You Tell Me
These guys focus on the power of their “brand” and very aggressive, hard-sell tactics from sales reps to suck local businesses in – they pry on business owners from low-tech industries and fill them with utter nonsense. It’s time to question these people. In my eyes they are nothing more than con-artists who, when pulled up about lies, conveniently put it down to a simple mistake by the sales rep. It happens far too often for it to be a simple mistake and I’m delighted that more and more people are writing about this very subject online, we need to raise awareness and educate local business owners.
What’s the alternative?
GO WITH A LOCAL WEB DESIGNER! You will get far more for your money, you will own it, you will receive a far more personal service. You should also receive a few website changes each year for free should you wish to alter things.
Whatever you do, just don’t go with a “well known directory” to do your company website, you will regret it.
Don’t be the next victim.