Will it help my little website?

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[jc]

Hello to all.

Ive been creating a little landscaping website for my business with a help of a very knowledgeable gent.  My question is would it be sensible now to pay someone around £50 to submit the site to approx 400 - 500 search engines & £40 to 200+ directories?  

Thanks in advance  JC
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http://swindonlandscaping.co.uk

[Bravo]

You must give the (myfree/myfast/myfine)forum.org link to your forum. A link should be given to the problem if at all possible. Do this whether you think it is important or not.
Search on the forum and on howtodoit for your problem before posting. 90% of the posts we get have easily found answers if you search on a couple of key words from your post. If this is not the case report the keywords you searched on and we will make sure search works for the next person to try the same search terms. Each time someone doesn't bother to use the search, questions accumulate in the forum making it harder for people to actually find answers! as people searching will end up finding the question and not the answer.
Keep it to one support question per thread, if you have another question start a new topic. This will help others using "search" to find answers.
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[admin (no pm's please)]

In this case this is not a forum, but is a web site that is one of mine. So usual rules can't quite apply.

Search engines pick up sites anyway, and are not worth paid submissions.

Free directories may qualify as links, but are really quite dubious.

We would get more mileage as a rule out of a link sharing scheme.

However there are keyword issues here that work in favour. e.g. you have little interest in being found by someone searching for landscape gardening in general. You do have an interest in distinct keywords like "swindon". Taken in conjunction with a few other key words and you should get to be top of a useful search quite easily.

The key is to get some decent links in place. You have just got yourself one here. Contribute to some gardening forums and you can get stronger more related links.

It will still take months to get there, but it should happen if you persevere and get 50 odd links in place.
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[Bravo]

[admin (no pm's please)]

designed/hosted. I don't do a lot of it, so hardly deserving of its own section.
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[while()]

The majority are totally pointless, in fact I'd go as far as to say all are totally pointless. Nothing beats organic search engine listings, if you have good content then you'll rank highly, if you don't have good content and have to pay for listings it's not going to be a site people will want to visit.

In regards to your particular situation: Your website is aimed at a specific niche and a specific set of people (those wanting landscaping in swindon) so even if you did have your website listed in a directory the chances are you wouldn't get any worthwhile traffic because how many americans want a swindon based landscaper? Personally I think your best approach would be to go directly to the people you're potentially going to be serving. Don't use your website to catch people, use your website to backup what you're trying to sell.

So instead of listing in a directory hoping someone will see it, go to your website and contact you for your services (which is highly unlikely), instead use your website to contain information on your services and previous examples and when you are in swindon (which I assume is the location you service) spread it around, if you're doing work at a house then stick a sign outside, if you've got a van then put the website on the side of that. It's infinitely more worthwhile than having your site listed in irrelevant directories. I know when my parents were having a conservatory built they didn't go on the internet, they had a friend refer them to a builder and their catalogue, so if your customers can say to their friends "Yeah, <company> did mine, it's awesome, I'd highly recommend them! You could see all their work and prices on <website>".

My own experience with real world work is that people don't want to trust someone they've never heard of through the internet with lots of money and their property, I know I'd be much more likely to employ someone I'd seen around my town who I can read about and see their work online than just someone I found through google.

[Bravo]

Just in response to the first post, I can tell you that my wife paid over £500 last year on these directory deals, and didn't get one single enquiry.  The £550 she paid to the yellow pages paid for itself very quickly indeed.

Not saying you should go one way or the other, just saying what actually happened for us last year.
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[admin (no pm's please)]

That makes perfect sense. Directory submissions are little more than scams. No one reads the things (unless it is yellow pages or a few others) and search engines will discount them.

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