Hello lawn mowing people, what I'm going to talk about today is why you shouldn't waste
your money on directory services or at least you should do some investigation before you
spend any money there. So basically you've started your own lawn mowing business, you've been mowing a few
lawns here and there and things are going pretty good and then out of the blue you get
a call from somebody that tells you that you really need to be listed in their directory
and they promise you that it's going to bring in tons of customers and it will help your
business grow and do you think you're worth it? And if you've ever heard the saying beware of strangers bearing gifts, perhaps they should
say beware of directories as well because these guys, some of these guys charge high
fees for listings and they require you to sign up for a long term contract and it may
seem like a good idea to have your name out there in as many places as possible but the
truth is that most of these directories are a complete waste of time and money and this
is why. So back in the day things were a little bit different, people had telephone directories
and what they used to do is they'd go to the yellow pages when they wanted to find something
they'd look through, they'd find a service that they wanted and they'd bring it. But today I've noticed that in the last four or five years the directories are getting
smaller and smaller. I used to spend five or six grand a year on the directory listing, I haven't done that
in years and in fact I'm getting more phone calls now than I was back then
I think that printed directories are definitely better and online directories are much better
People don't go to directories when they want something done. If someone wants their lawn mowed they're not going to go and type in online directory
.co.nz or find me a tradesman or whatever, they're going to type in lawn mowing Hamilton
or lawn mowing Auckland or wherever they are. They're just going to type in that, they might type in lawn mowing contractor near me and
then rely on the geomapping on their computer or phone to bring up local listings
That's how people are looking these days. The other thing is that not many of these directories are well maintained or well organised
So if someone is looking for a lawn mowing service they may have difficulties finding
your listing or worse still some of these directories are complete scams and you might
find yourself paying for a listing that never materialises. You get the same thing with websites
You might launch your own business to phone links and someone tells you that your lawn
mowing website isn't ranking and they can get you to the top of the rankings through
this amount of money. And this is another scam. You don't want to do this
If you wanted to find a good SEO company to get your website to the top of the listing
then what you would do is type into Google SEO company near me and you know what the
best ones will come at the top of the page. Those half years look at the organic listings
The one with the best organic listings is the guy with the best SEO and that's the
guy that you want doing your business. Not some random stranger that rang you on the telephone and offered you SEO
I get so sick of people doing that. Sorry about that little rant there
I get so annoyed but if you think this is bad you should hear me when they ring me up
Now I'm not saying that all directories are bad. There's directories like Yellow and there's directories like Yelp and these places really
do help you find customers. And but really most of the people these days when they want lawn mowing, as I said they're
not going to use a directory. They'll use something like Google, they'll use something like Google Maps, they might
use Bing. And if you're on these places then you will get found and all you need to really do is
operate the business well. Make sure that you maximize your listing when you've got a Google Maps listing
Make sure that you're doing things like getting reviews. Make sure that you're posting something occasionally
And when you post on your Google Maps listing don't post like it's social media
Post it like it's a billboard because that post is going to sit there for about three months or so and then it's going to drop off
So just post the services. Don't post oh wonderful day here in Wellington city or something like that because that's
not what people are going to, they're more likely to read you if you post something like
hey we do hitches. It just makes more sense because these posts go directly underneath your Google Maps listing
on the right hand side of the page when people search for your kind of business
So that's really where you want to be. So to sum it up I'd say that paying for directory listings is a complete waste of time and money
and you're better off putting your money into things like Google Ads or Facebook marketing
and other things like that. And just remember that if anybody ever rings you out of the blue and tries to sell you
a service like SEO or directories or anything like that, if they were so good at making
people rise to the top and be found in directories and online then why the hell are they ringing you
They should be relying on their own services that they're offering. They should be relying on SEO to get people to ring them
If they're telemarketing you then they're no good at what they're doing. They're no good at having a directory
They're no good at SEO. They're just trying to make money by doing practically nothing
So they'll be quite happy to take the money off you but you'll probably never hear from
them again. So that's just what I've got to say about directories and I'm sorry about the little
rant but sometimes I get a bit annoyed with these guys. But anyway, get out there, my lawns have fun and happy lawn mowing people