We run a register of small businesses, so you would expect this post to conclude that you should be in one. It does not. Most of the branches below end in no, and one of them ends in "not us either".
That is not modesty. It is that a listing is a small thing with a real ongoing cost, and the number of operators who would be better off spending the same afternoon on their own site is large.
Work through the five questions in order. Stop at the first no. There is no prize for reaching the end.
What this is, and who it is for
This is for someone with a limited number of spare hours deciding whether to spend one of them getting listed somewhere. It assumes you are not going to pay, and it makes no claim about what any listing produces. We publish no number we did not measure, and nobody can tell you what a listing will do for your business specifically.
If you want the mechanics of the category before you decide, how directories make money explains the five ways a listing site earns and the tell that gives each one away. That post is more useful than this one if you have not read it.
Question 1: is your own site legible yet? (If no, stop here)
Open your site in a private window, on a phone. Hand it to someone who has never heard of your business, give them ten seconds, take the phone back and ask what you sell.
If they cannot answer, stop. Do not get listed anywhere.
Every listing is a pointer. A pointer to a page a stranger cannot read is not worth creating, and neither is the second one, or the twentieth. Whatever attention a listing sends arrives at a page that cannot do anything with it, and you will conclude that listings do not work when what actually happened is that the destination did not.
This branch stops most readers, and it should. The ten-item checklist is the diagnostic and what else is worth your time first is the priority order. Come back to this post when a stranger can name your product in ten seconds.
Ends in: no, for now.
Question 2: do your customers actually search this way?
Think about the last five customers you can trace. How did each of them arrive? A recommendation, a passing trade, a supplier, a repeat, a search, a listing?
If none of them came through anything resembling a directory, that is meaningful information about your trade. Some businesses are found by being pointed at, some by being walked past, some by being the only person within an hour who does the thing. In those trades a listing is a low-yield use of an afternoon, and no amount of it being free changes that.
If you genuinely do not know how your customers found you, ask the next ten. It costs one sentence at the end of a job.
Ends in: no, if nobody arrives that way. Continue if some do.
Question 3: what is this particular directory's business model?
Every listing site is paid by somebody. Before you hand over your details, work out who.
- Somebody pays for inclusion or position. Then the order you see is an order somebody bought, and your unpaid entry sits underneath it. Fine to know, worse to discover later.
- Your enquiry is the product. Some sites do not send you a customer, they sell your enquiry, sometimes to several businesses at once. The tell is usually a contact form that keeps the reader on their site rather than sending them to yours.
- The data is the product. Some sites exist to compile records and license or resell them, in which case your details travel further than the page you can see.
- Nobody pays and the site is a hobby. Often the most pleasant to deal with and the least maintained, which matters for question five.
- Someone funds it for a reason they have published. Reasonable, if the reason is on a page you can read.
How directories make money goes through the five models properly with the observable tell for each. If you cannot work out which one applies after five minutes on the site, that is itself an answer.
Ends in: no, if the model is one you would not want to be part of, or if you cannot identify it at all.
Question 4: can you get out again?
Treat this as a first-class criterion rather than an afterthought. If you cannot leave, do not join.
Before submitting anything, find the removal route. Look for a page that says how to be delisted, how long it takes, whether it costs anything, and who to contact. Then look at whether the site publishes anything about what happens to your details after removal.
Warning signs, in rough order of how much they should bother you:
- No removal page at all.
- A removal route that requires creating an account, or paying.
- A removal route that only exists inside a "claim your listing" flow.
- Details already published about you that you never supplied.
That last one deserves saying plainly: a site can list you without asking, and getting off it can be slow. How to get off one you regret sets out the escalation ladder and is honest about where it stops working.
Assume throughout that you are asking rather than compelling. What a business is obliged to do, or entitled to, varies by legal form, sector and location, and this site does not answer it; what your site has to say about who you are is the post that handles questions of that shape properly.
Ends in: no, if you cannot find a way out before you go in.
Question 5: what does it cost you in time to keep accurate?
Every listing you hold is a record about your business that you do not control and are responsible for. Each one is another place your hours, your address, your phone number and your service list can quietly go out of date.
The cost is small per listing and it is not zero, and it recurs. When you change your hours, move premises, drop a service or change a phone number, every listing you hold is now wrong. Wrong listings are worse than no listings, because a stranger who turns up at the old address or rings the old number does not conclude that a directory is out of date. They conclude that you are.
So the honest arithmetic is: multiply the number of listings by the number of times a year your details change, and ask whether you will really do that work. Most people, honestly answering, will not do it for more than two or three places.
Ends in: no, if you already hold more listings than you maintain. Fix or remove those before creating another.
The branches that end in no
Collected in one place, because they are the majority.
| If this is true | The answer is |
|---|---|
| A stranger cannot tell what you sell from your own site | No. Fix that first. |
| Nobody in your trade has ever arrived through a listing | No. Spend the hour elsewhere. |
| You cannot work out who pays for the site | No. |
| The model is one you would not want to be associated with | No. |
| There is no removal route, or it costs money | No. |
| You already hold listings you do not maintain | No. Maintain or remove those first. |
| You would be doing it because you feel you ought to | No. That is not a reason. |
The branch that ends in "not us either"
We should apply the same test to ourselves.
We expect to refuse most of what is submitted to us. The bar is narrow on purpose and published in full at our entry bar, including every automatic exclusion. Several whole categories are excluded outright at launch regardless of how good the business is. If yours is one of them, submitting is a waste of your time, and we would rather say so here than take the submission.
There is also no payment path, which cuts both ways. We accept no money for inclusion, position, priority or removal, and there is no premium tier and no way to expedite anything. That is set out with the mechanism at who pays for this site. It means the question "is it worth paying for" has no version that applies to us, and it also means we cannot offer you anything in exchange for the effort of submitting.
And a listing here does very little on its own. What a listing here does and doesn't do is deliberately deflating, and accurate. If you are looking for something that will change your week, this is not it.
So: if your business falls in an excluded category, if you need a fast or guaranteed answer, if you would be upset by a refusal, or if you were hoping a listing would do something specific for you, the honest answer is that we are not the right fit. The submission page exists and it is free, and we would still rather you read this section first than send us something we will turn down.
If you decide yes: what to send and what to withhold
Suppose you have worked through all five and the answer is still yes for one or two places. Keep the submission tight.
Send: your trading name, exactly as it appears on your own site. A one-line description in plain nouns. Your website. A business contact route you monitor. Your town or region if location is relevant. Your hours only if you will keep them updated everywhere.
Withhold: your home address, including where your home is the registered business address. Your personal mobile. Your personal email. Anything about the people in your household. Any detail you would not want to see reproduced elsewhere, because a listing can be copied by other sites without your involvement.
Two practical habits. Keep one copy of the details you submit, so that when something changes you know every place that needs correcting. The one-page fact sheet exists for exactly that, in a public version and a private one. And write down where you submitted and when, which turns "I think we're on some sites" into a list you can actually maintain.
In Plain English
Do not join anything until a stranger can tell what you sell from your own site. After that, only join a place whose funding you understand and whose exit route you have found before you go in. Every listing is a small permanent chore, so hold few and keep them right.
Most people reading this should do nothing, and that includes doing nothing about us. We take no money, offer no priority, expect to refuse most submissions, and a listing here will not change your month.
Questions operators ask before submitting anywhere
Is being on more directories better than being on fewer?
We would say no, and we are hardly a neutral party. The cost of each listing is ongoing and the value of a listing nobody maintains falls to zero, so a small number you keep accurate is easier to defend than a long list you cannot.
What if a site has already listed me without asking?
That happens, and it is common enough that we wrote a whole post about the removal ladder. Start there. Do not assume the listing is harmless just because it is flattering.
Does reading this improve my chances with you?
No. Nothing does except clearing the entry bar, and that rule is written into the bar so it cannot erode quietly.
Read how directories work before you decide anything. If you would rather spend the hour on your own site, being findable is the section for that.