Top 5 UK Business Directories - RATED & REVIEWED

Yell is the one of the biggest advertising and marketing brands in the UK.

It owns the now somewhat obsolete and traditional printed Yellow Pages directory. However, it also owns various new media / online products like Yell.com and 118 247. This lens is associated with online business directories so the Yell.com product is going to be reviewed here.

What you get for FREE:
The following is content / functionality that is included in the free advert:

- Basic contact details, i.e. Name / Address / Phone Number
- 6 bullet points about your business
- A brief summary about you and 12 more bullets that describe your business.
- Your company logo and up to 20 photos
- Link to your website

Originally Yell hosted business videos for free, however, after a lot of searching it looks like this has changed. If you have your own business video already then their latest rate card shows a £100pa fee for this. However, in some other marketing material on their site it does say video is included in the Free Advertising Listing*

To see what you get for free then click here to see further details.

Upgrades To The Free Advert
Yell's online upgrades are mainly focused around priority status within a location based search - the following are their 3 upgrade titles:

- Sponsored Prominence (most prominent and exclusive position on Yell)
- Heavyweight Prominence (appears above Mediumweight Prominence)
- Mediumweight Prominence (appears above Free Listings)

Their prices can be a little hefty too when you consider we are talking about advertising on the Internet, for example, if you're a Builder based in London then it will cost you £10,000pa for a 'Mediumweight Prominence' listing, and a whopping £19,000pa for a 'Heavyweight Prominence' advert. These prices exclude VAT too, so no matter how you look at it, this advertising has to generate a significant amount of revenue to pay for itself.

Although if your business is niche category then the cost is dramatically reduced, e.g. if you are a Tailor (Yell's Tailor Alterations category), then the 'Mediumweight Prominence' is £400 and 'Heavyweight Prominence' is £700 for the London area. This is reduced to £70 and £140 respectively if you live in a lower density area, e.g. Worcester.

To see how much your business category would be then click on this link to see the Yell Rate Card here.

The Benefits of Advertising on Yell

- Well respected brand
- High site traffic**
- Better level of free content now available

The Cons

- Uncertain future of the company (Google their results)
- Expensive upgrades and limited transparency of features / pricing
- Customer service issues (again Google this for more info)

In Conclusion
It's definitely worth taking up the Yell Free Advert as it now offers a better level of free content. However, make sure you write a unique description for your business using all available character limits. Also add the full amount of photos and video (if it's free).

Final note: Yell is a sales force driven company so be prepared to receive telesales calls from them trying to sell you the upgrade packages.

** Please think twice before you purchase any priority status upgrades as remember that over 80% of online searches are actioned in Google. Your free Yell advert listing stands just as much chance as appearing above other Yell advertisers with prominence upgrades in Google's own search results. Yell's reported 9m + users per month are not all direct users of the site - the majority will have clicked through from Google after seeing a link to a business they are already interested in (regardless of prominence).

* I called Yell on the phone, however, the customer service person was unable to confirm whether video is hosted for free. They were going to find out but I didn't receive a call back.

Wampit® is one of the fastest growing and quality advertising services in the UK, USA and Australia.

Their advertising service is a relative newcomer to the pack being just under five years old. However, when you consider Facebook is just over five years old, and Google is ten, then actually Wampit® is quite mature in Internet terms.

Their free advert and upgrades are totally transparent, i.e. just one click away from their homepage is their registration form that shows you exactly what is included for free, and what elements are chargeable features.

Wampit® is ahead of the other business directories on test here in terms of video, as you can upload one for free to your business profile - they actually host the video too (not just a link to YouTube).

What you get for FREE:

- Name / address / phone number
- Your company logo or picture
- Up to 3000 characters to write about your business
- Hosted video against your profile
- TwitterLIVE (shows your live tweets on your advert)
- Max of 20 keywords associated to your business sector
- Offers and discount info (launching in Dec 2012)
- Extra 3 images (launching in Dec 2012)

To see what you get for free then click here to see an example advert.

Upgrades
Wampit® offers a pick-a-mix approach to its upgrades, i.e. they can be bought individually according to your requirements.

- Website Link
- Priority Status (appear above free listings)
- Document Upload (e.g. store a menu, brochure or price list)
- My Links (e.g. link to your social networking sites)

A lot of business owners will welcome this upgrade approach, i.e. not being forced into buying unwanted elements of an upgade package. Also the prices are the most competitive here and provide exceptional value for money.

The Benefits of Advertising on Wampit®

- Well designed with good SEO structure
- Fully self-serve (registration and amendments)
- Medium traffic volume
- Cost effective and relevant upgrades
- Human edited directory

The Cons

- Priority Status upgrade is just 'national'
- Youngest directory on review here

In Conclusion
Wampit® is an essential business directory for you to list your company on. They give a lot of text away for free with the Business Description (3,000 characters), so make sure you spend time creating quality content describing your business, products and services (include keywords you are targeting as Wampit®'s SEO works well in major search engines).

Also, a recommended upgrade to the free advert is the Web Link product that will drive customers to your website. This is charged at just £29.99 per year and will ensure you don't miss any potential customer enquiries.

Here's a direct link to list your company on the Wampit® business directory

My Local Services (MLS)has been established for over five years and is one of the leading medium usage directories in its class.

The services was built on solid and basic principles, i.e. customer service and rich functionality. Together with Wampit they offer the best in class in terms of customer service levels, and answer every communication received.

MLS's SEO is top quality, and their advertisers constantly benefit from links to their free advert appearing high in Google's search results.

What you get for FREE:

- Name / address / phone
- Local Exposure within your town

To see what you get for free then click here to see their rate card.

Upgrades to the free advert:
MLS offer a one package upgrade for life. This is a unique offering compared to the other directories on test here. The cost of this upgrade is just £60 inc VAT and includes:

- Website Link
- A logo
- Full page description
- Pictures
- Full exposure (town, counties or UK)

This is a very competitive and comprehensive upgrade that offers real value for money.

The Benefits of Advertising on My Local Services:

- Good SEO and prominence in Google's search results
- Ethical company with customer service at its heart
- Competitive upgrade package
- Business forum is linked to the site
- Ability to add reviews that are picked up by Google

The Cons:

- Just one level of upgrade package
- Can't add video (yet)

In Conclusion
My Local Services has a community feel and run by advertising professionals with a real passion for customer service and value for money. I called them on the phone to confirm the details in this lens and they were especially helpful. Also, they have many positive reviews on the Internet from happy customers (free and upgraded).

It is definitely worth spending quality time completing your profile on MLS with unique content and upgrading to the 'LIFETIME' product.

FreeIndex is one of the older directories in this review and was launced in 2003 by a web developer.

Today FreeIndex has grown up to service over 1.5m people every month and offers additional features like jobs, events and also runs its own business forum.

A unique feature of the directory is that its listings are ordered by customer ranking, i.e. the better companies are shown at the top.

What you get for FREE:

- Contact details
- Business description
- Photos and Videos
- Web Link / Opening Hours / Special Offers
- Product details and payment methods

Upgrades
Like MLS, FreeIndex offers a one package upgrade called 'Freeindex Premium' - the following are key features of this product:

- No 3rd party adverts on your page
- Bold photo listing
- More photos / videos and add documents, e.g. menu
- Enhanced lead features (respond to more a day)

The cost of this upgrade is £95 inc VAT per year (charged at £7.95 per month) - this is quite competitive, however, the real value of this upgrade is not as good when compared against other upgrades on test in this review.

To see details of their premium package then please click on this link to see full details.

The Benefits of Advertising on FreeIndex

- Rich in free functionality
- Easy to register
- Order of their search results based on reviews

The Cons:

- Upgrade package is weak in terms of real benefits
- 3rd party advert heavy in the free listing profiles

In Conclusion
FreeIndex offers a great service and its SEO performs well in Google, i.e. links to its free advertisers appear high in Google's search results. The free advert package is very comprehensive and easy to complete.

The upgrade package is relatively inexpensive and its performance can be tracked during the year. So this makes it a recommended upgrade in year one, before assessing its performance and deciding to renew in subsequent years.

Thomson Local have been around for many years and are publishers of the Thomson Local Directory (a traditional competitor of Yellow Pages).

They were one of the early adopters of the Internet and have published their own directory, however, they are also a data supplier and sell it to other companies.

What you get for FREE:

- 500 character business description
- 180 character promotional text
- 2 images and 1 document upload
- Unlimited bullet points

Unlike all the other directories on test here, you can only submit your contact details first if you want to register. Then a member of their service or sales department will call you back to give you access details (and probably try to sell you an upgrade). It is frustrating that you can't go ahead and complete your business profile without having to go through this process.

To see what you get for free then please click here to see screenshot of the account pages and click here to see their online directory marketing page.

Upgrades to the Free Advert
Thomson offer a 'Priority Lisiting' upgrade package, however they don't publish prices on their website and they seem to like to talk to you (presumably because you are more likely to buy when you speak to a sales person) - I called them up to find out the cost and after a while of negotations and refusing to speak to a sales person they finally gave an answer, i.e. £400pa is the rate card price, however, the operative did say that if I speak to sales then they may be able to reduce it down to £250pa based on my area!

The Priority Lisitng upgrade includes:

- Appear above free lisitngs
- Highlighted weblink
- Map and directions
- User ratings and reviews
- Corporate logo

The cost of upgrade is actually quite a lot (£400 or even the £250) when you compare what other directories are offering in this review. The feature of main benefit is the 'appear above free listings', however, it goes back to the same point as Yell, i.e. 80% of people search in Google and the status of priority in your local directories has no impact on that.

The Benefits of Advertising on Thomson Local

- Established brand
- Higher volume of visitors

The Cons:

- Heavy sales focus (have to speak to telesales)
- Zero transparency of prices
- Not a self-serve process
- Unsure if Weblink is included in free advert

In Conclusion
Thomson has been around for a long time and is a respected company, however, it does seem to have a higher than normal amount of negative feedback on the Internet regarding its sales and customer support process.

The website is well constructed and has a good amount of usage. Therefore that's why it is in the top 5 business directory list, however, you may have to go though a little bit of pain to avoid their sales processes if you opt for just the free advert.

So this lens has drilled down into a lot of detail regarding the top 5 business directories on test here. The recommendation is that you list your business on each one of them, however, in order to get the most out of your investment of time then please follow these simple steps:

1. List your business on all of these sites
2. Add a UNIQUE profile describing your business to each one
3. Use up all the allowed text and weave your business keywords into the text
4. Add good quality photos to your profile
5. Keep your content updated throughout the year

If you stick to these rules then you'll have a winning advertising strategy associated to the top directory sites and will increase customer enquires over time.

Also remember to ask each customer enquiry where they got your contact details from. That way you can track the performance of your online advertising strategy.

Okay, so you will have read through the detail in this lens and will have probably already decided on which directories are worth paying for upgrades.

However, in summary the following is my recommendation:

- Yell.com = Free advert only (unless Mediumweight is below £150)
- Wampit = Weblink Upgrade (£29.99)
- My Local Services = LIFETIME Upgrade (£60)
- FreeIndex = Premium Upgrade (£95)
- Thomson Local = Free advert only

So the total cost is just under £200pa (excluding possible Yell upgrade) to get your business noticed on the best directories in the UK.