Free Online Advertising

If you have read my previous posts, you will know that I recently came really close to switching off my free online advertising options and was thinking about only allowing upgraded listings in UK Small Business Directory.

I was getting fed up with the amount of non-UK based businesses trying to add themselves, fed up with the fake businesses, fed up with those just adding listings solely for the purpose of tricking Google, fed up with how sloppy people are when adding listings and generally fed up that no one appreciates the service I provide.

Right at the last minute I changed my mind and rather than switching off the free advertising option I changed the registration form to invitation only and asked for people to email if they wanted a link to the invite page.

I added a message saying “Note: Don’t just send a blank email – Let me know more about yourself and the business you want to add and you have more chance of receiving an invite.”

The result has been quite pleasing, I still got a few emails from people saying they wanted a listing but providing no information, but I also got some really nice emails from obviously genuine business owners who wrote brief descriptions and politely asked for an invite.

The new submissions have dropped from 60 or 70 a day to less than a handful, but this is well worth it as the quality of the new enties has risen considerably.

Not only that, but because people go to the trouble of emailing and appreciate the reply they receive it helps with relationship building and also make it more likely they will come back for an upgrade.