Benefits of paying for directory listings
![Advertising the old fashioned way: much more worthwhile in my opinion](https://assets-global.website-files.com/5fd1f810f64b2873ff6f19bd/601146d3835968b88ae2ec2b_advertising-page-001-2.jpeg)
As I’m sure anybody who works in a small business will agree with: online directories are extremely annoying.
Take up a free listing on their sites and they will hound you, trying to sell premium listings, web design, SEO, even the kitchen sink.
At this point of the business, I had managed to avoid the majority of these, as I couldn’t justify the extortionate cost of a listing on a website I had never heard of, but then I got called by the big boys: Yell and Yelp.
![Company Logos-b8f66a35-fd85-431e-b777-f0c0d0c311d2](https://assets-global.website-files.com/5fd1f810f64b2873ff6f19bd/601146d3b542d52f0f5c4200_Company-Logos-b8f66a35-fd85-431e-b777-f0c0d0c311d2.jpeg)
I got sucked into the sales pitches and ended up taking up their offers for paid advertising. What did I discover from paying for Yell and Yelp advertising? In my opinion, it totally isn’t worth it.
![yelp-logo-vector-yelp-logo-02](https://assets-global.website-files.com/5fd1f810f64b2873ff6f19bd/601146d3517eef34de3ec895_yelp-logo-vector-yelp-logo-02.jpeg)
It was early days, and we were trying to be as frugal as possible with our spending: focusing on advertising like Google Adwords that has an immediate ROI that is extremely measurable.
I had made bad decisions and was tied into two 12 month contracts, and was receiving nothing in return. I let this frustrate me, and researched whether paid Yelp or Yell advertising was supposedly any good for small businesses: and I discovered the answer to be a resounding No.
We still focused on trying to build an identity on these sites, and invested decent time into optimizing our pages, but in Bristol UK, where no directory has a large portion of market share (in the USA Yelp is a powerhouse of a directory).
This is by far the most negative blog post I’ve written, but paying for this advertising did teach us one lesson:
‘Do your research first.’ – Joseph Edwards
Some things do require a punt, as they may pay huge dividends, but if research proves that it’s unlikely to be a profitable venture, it’s probably worth avoiding.
We learnt a valuable lesson from paying for this advertising, and won’t be doing it again so spontaneously.