There are good arguments for and against listing your tradesman business in a directory. If this is something you have been thinking about for your business, then you may want to think about the following points.
Ranking
You should be choosing directories that rank well for your type of business in your area. A good way to discover these directories is to enter the type of trade service you provide and your location into a search engine. The directories that rank well are the ones that you should be looking at getting listed in. These directories are likely to bring your business traffic and potential customers.
Automation
Generally speaking, directories that have an automated process for accepting submissions should be avoided. They are more likely to have fake or low quality listings and probably won’t rank highly. Most of the time the listings in these directories are not indexed by the search engines like google and get very little traffic. A human reviewed directory is a much better option as all of the listings will then need to pass the editorial review to ensure that they are of sufficiently high quality. Automatically approved spam listings can contain unreadable gibberish text and link to untrustworthy sites.
Look At Other Listings
You can get a good idea of how reputable the directory is by looking at what else is advertised on there. If there are a lot of get rich quick schemes and gambling sites, then it is a good idea to look elsewhere. If there is a lot of information about each business that is a good sign. Low-quality directories have a small amount of information and high-quality directors generally have a higher amount of information about the business listings. High-quality directories may also have business reviews from customers who use the directory.
The Right Categories
A good directory should have different categories for different types of business. If there is no structure to the directory then it is probably one to avoid. The best type of directories for tradesmen to get listed in are those directories that are dedicated to tradesmen business. For example, if you are a plumber you should get listed in a tradesperson directory that has plumber categories if you are a local builder get listed in a home builder directory.
Keywords
There may have been a time when the backlink to your site would have been in the form of a relevant keyword. However, today it is more beneficial to include the URL of your site or your brand name. In fact, to many links with a specific keyword may make your website unable to rank for that keyword in google. Your website can rank well in the search engines without these types of keyword anchor texts so it is best to avoid adding exact match keywords (the exact words that people type into the search engine) to your link text.
Choose A Local Directory
A local directory can be a good choice because it is something that is preferred by search engines over general directories. Local directories are still used by people searching for local businesses. If your customers are looking for your services there it may be a good place to list your business.
Choose a Niche Relevant Directory
Directories that are relevant to your business type perform better than general directories. Google and other search engines can tell what a website is about and links and citations from relevant sites are more beneficial than irrelevant sites.
Citations are still important
Citations are important for local rankings. Citations means your business’s NAP = name, address and phone number. Google and other search engines use your NAP in relevant local directories to verify that your business is relevant for the area that you are in. This can help your website rankings and if you have a google my business listing the ranking of that listing in the search results. Google My Business listing are a great way to get your business found as google generally shows the top three listings at the top of the local search results.
Links are still important
If you have a website, links are still important to get your website ranked well in the search engines. Links are like votes for your website the more votes means signals to google and other search engines that your website it high quality. However, not all links are equal. Links from high quality websites and high quality webpages are better than those from low quality websites and webpages. This means that you should choose where you get links from carefully. Getting links from a high quality niche relevant directory will help make your website rank in the search engines.
Be Careful Not To Spam
There are many directories out there that you can use, but you don’t want to post your details on all of them at the same time. Instead, it is a better idea to post your website only on relevant high quality directories. A good rule is to think about if you would go to that directory to find a relevant business, if you would not search for your type of business on that directory it is best not to list your business on it.
Conclusion
Some tradesman directories do have beneficial influences in terms of generating leads for your business or for SEO for your website or Google My Business listing. However, the benefits come from websites that are relevant to your business type and relevant to your location.
To check this you can search for your business type/service and location and see which directories rank well for those searches. Getting listed in those directories will most likely help your business.