The Internet has revolutionised both our personal and business lives, including the ways in which we promote business services and products. Traditionally print advertisements and broadcast media such as television and radio have dominated the marketing world. The World Wide Web has allowed business owners to ?drum up? customers and get their message across without consumers actually realising that they are being subjected to intense marketing techniques.

If you are a new business owner and are looking for an inexpensive way to promote your business then the first marketing avenue you should explore should be an online business directory. Recent surveys have shown that more and more people are using the Internet to find business services and company information instead of more traditional print directories such as the yellow pages.

Although essentially online directories function and do the same job as print yellow pages, they also provide a number of added advantages for your new business venture. One of these advantages is the increased amount of visitors or web traffic your website will receive. The traffic to your site will increase due to the high number of quality links that can be gained from listing your business in an online directory.

Unlike the major search engines such as Google and Yahoo, an online business directory displays business listings in relevant categories keeping all links quality and relevant to your business. Whilst search engines are capable of reading the quality of links to your site, listing in a directory ensures that the links you receive are of a higher quality thus improving your overall page rank on the major search engines.

The main difference between a business directory and a search engine is that search engines will often display listings using keywords and themes as opposed to categories, however, a well-optimised site should rank highly in both directories and search engine results pages (SERPs). The reason for this is that the links you will receive will be from relevant websites that are connected t o your industry in some way. Although obtaining relevant links through natural listings is achievable, it is likely to be much quicker through online search directories.

Online business listings are also reasonably cheap compared to other marketing methods, some are even available free of charge in exchange for a link from your site to theirs. For new businesses, then listing in an online business directory is an excellent place to start your online marketing campaign. If you are interested in comprehensive business listings please visit www.searchme4.co.uk.