There are many ways to get your inflatable business and information listed online, beyond your own web site. Listing your company with reputable third party web sites will ultimately benefit your inflatable business, driving more traffic to your own site and generating customers. In addition, external web links directing to your inflatable web site will help to improve you business’ standings with the search engines. Third party external links have been proven to be a critical component to the algorithms of the top search engines. Directing potential new customers to your web site through these listings is also an important aspect to growing your business.
While there are hundreds of paid listings online, there are also many sites where you can list your company free of charge. Some of these are even specific to the inflatable industry. Many potential prospects are using these sites every day to find an inflatable vendor for their upcoming event. While some of the sites are paid directories, you may want to consider budgeting for this type of marketing. Generally the fee is nominal, and by being a fee-based service the competing inflatable listings are fewer.
Some directories allow you to pay an additional charge for a more “featured” listing. This may mean that your company’s information will appear on the sidebar of the main pages, or at the top of the listings as a sponsored vendor. This is an innovative use of your advertising dollars that may be able to win you more inflatable business. Other directories offer banner advertising available on their sites. This type of advertising may also be useful to drive prospects directly to your web site with the click of a button.
The following sites offer listings for businesses specific to the inflatable industry:
http://www.partyreferral.com
http://www.specialeventsite.com
http://www.partyjumpusa.com
http://www.inflatableyellowpages.com
http://www.bouncecheap.com/national/directory.html
http://www.bouncerdirectory.com
http://www.azbouncepro.com/party-rental-directory.html
The following sites offer listings for a variety of industries, but are still very useful in generating links pointing to your site and establishing value with the search engines:
http://www.dmoz.org/
http://dir.yahoo.com/business_and_economy/directories/companies
When listing your business be sure to include all of your contact information, including web site and email address. It is also helpful to include a logo and photo if the site allows this. Adding this extra touch will make your company stand out from other listings.
In most cases you will be allowed to enter some information about your company and your services. Keep this information brief and to the point. For an inflatable business it is useful to note how many years that you have been in business to establish credibility, the geographic area that you serve, events that you may specialize in, and the inflatable products and services that your company has to offer.
In addition, many of these general online directories will allow you to select a category for listing your company and services. By doing this additional step those visitors looking for your specific inflatable services can easily navigate to your company information.
The process of adding your business to external sites will take some time, but will ultimately provide you with a positive investment.