Are you wanting free leads for your UK based business with minimum effort and direct to your inbox?
Setting a profile up on Freeindex.co.uk could be just what you are looking for.
Free Index has been around on the internet for quite a while. It was founded way back in 2003 so this directory is very much trusted. There is no pushy sales people forcing you to upgrade and provides you a great extra opportunity for visibility for your UK based business.
As the title suggests it is free to join it is also worth mentioning there is also a premium option but we will concentrate this blog on the free version.
They have a staggering £2,000,000 leads a month just the thought of that makes the effort setting your profile all worth it.
Every month, around £2 million worth of new business is generated through the FreeIndex Quote / Lead system.
According to Moz they have a DA 73/100 and PA of 78/100
And a spam score of 1
This basically tells us that according to Moz it’s very good website to have your business on.
Claiming your free index listing
Getting a free listing in this directory is not difficult you will need the following to sign up.
- Your business name
- Your business Email (don’t be tempted to use Gmail it looks bad.)
- Your phone number (This can be mobile.)
- Your business address and postcode (This needs to be a physical address.) </li>
- Time to complete the basic setup about 6 minutes.
https://www.freeindex.co.uk/signup.htm
2.0 Registering your business
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Once you have filled the above out you will need to confirm your page via your email. A simple case of simply clicking the link they send you via email. It tends to come pretty quick but if you seem to be having problems use a different email address.
It is well worth completing this first so you don’t have problems signing in later. Your listing will not go live until you have confirmed your listing via email.
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Above you can see a pretty much completed profile. To help you plan this better I have wrote everything in a list bellow of what you are going to need.
- Your logo
- Your business description 5 or 6 paragraphs of text. (All original content)
- Your business entity type
- Your opening hours
- Videos if you are including them
- Images of your business internal and external
- Images of your business products or services
- What payment methods you are going to use
- Categories and tags 5 and 5 of each
- All the text to go with your products or services
- All your social media links i.e. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn
It will take about 1 hour to complete your business profile if you already have the information ready. If you plan on doing this on the go it’s going to take about a couple of hours.
The more completed your profile is the further up there organic results you will be in Freeindex. There are other ranking factors such as premium listings and reviews but it really pays to have a fully completed profile.
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The first part you are going to fill out is your phone number and address.
You also have you business entity type to fill in.
Make sure to add your logo and phone number.
With the email address make sure you add a company email address anything with Gmail or yahoo looks really bad. If you receive emails from either a Gmail address or yahoo would you trust what they are typing?
With your address offices are good or if you are a home based business you can add that address just Long as it is a physical address.
With your photos use photos from the outside of your shop or business as well as internal. It gives people a feel of your business.
You could use front desk photos anything that helps a searcher get to know your business.
A few examples of photos of pictures you could use.
- Web design business could use portfolio pictures of websites that they have created.
- A restaurant could use pictures of the food and maybe even some kitchen pictures.
- An ecommerce based business could use best product pictures or products being used in real life.
- A gym or personal trainer could pictures of the gym or even the equipment in the Gym.
With photos don’t forget you will need some photos later for you products and services.
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Opening hours is rather simple to complete. Helpful hint if you close at 6pm at night mark the correct time. If you use false business hours it is your reputation that you are damaging.
7.0 Adding your business description
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With your business description you will need around 4 to 5 paragraphs. Don’t be tempted to just simply copy your web-site intro add some unique useful content. Try your best to let people buy from you.
What makes your business unique?
What are your unique selling points?
Do you have 20 years of experience?
Do you offer free delivery or click and collect?
Give me a reason to buy from you.
Can you turn an order round in less than an hour?
8.0 Adding videos
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If you have any videos for your website add them. If you are stuck for ideas there are a few bellow.
- The managing director could introduce the business explaining why people should buy from you and also how you can help the customer.
- A promo video marketing not sales to get people interested in your business for example if you are in SEO a free site audit.
- If you are a web designer a free wireframe mock up at no extra cost. You could do a video on mock up websites.
- If you are a hotel you could show the different rooms, you could also show all your different facility’s that you offer.
- If you sell products you could do comparisons of competitor’s products.
9.0 Adding payment methods
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With payment only add the payment methods you use. When you are starting out you might want to use PayPal and bank transfer if this applicable to your business as you get bigger you could get a merchant account so that you can accept credit and debit cards.
As I will say as I do to everyone PayPal does not look too good once you get past a certain size but everyone has to start somewhere.
10.0 Adding your business categories
Add yourself in the right categories
This is not difficult if you are struggling with this have a look at what competitors are using.
11.0 Adding your business products
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If you are a product based website get your best selling products in. If you have a lot of products on your website give a good general mix. If you don’t sell products you can skip the next two sections and head over to services.
12.0 Adding your key products
Make sure that when you write the descriptions that you make them unique. You can also link them over to your website.
Make sure you keep the prices the same unless you are doing a discount on free index make sure to include this in the description
Add all your social media profiles so people can find out more about your business. Adding all your social links is especially important for start-ups because people would never have heard about you.
13.0 Adding you web address and social links
14 Adding your services
If you sell services add them in with a picture and a price. If you don’t have set price use from prices. If you include no price than most people will not make it their business to come and find out so a missed opportunity.
If you have followed this guide you will have all the basics complete. Don’t forget to update your products and prices and keeping you listing fresh.
ABOUT FREE INDEX
In-text: (FreeIndex, 2018)
FreeIndex. (2018). About Free index. [online] Available at: https://www.freeindex.co.uk/tour.htm [Accessed 1 Feb. 2018].