Don’t pay for online business listings-ever!
I'm serious. I can't make this point strongly enough.
Internet advertising is another story (after all it supports this website and a gazillion others like it) and under certain circumstances can be effective.
But there are simply too many places on the Internet that allow you to list your business and draw interested traffic free to ever spend a cent on this service unless someone can offer you something extra.
Take Arron Kallenberg's Localcents, for example. To be sure, Arron's no bootstrapper, at least not anymore. As he explains in an e-mail dated Sept. 2:
Most of our efforts this year have been directed toward capital fundraising. Last week we finally completed our first round of funding, which will be used to open a development office in Seattle and hire additional programmer(s).
In addition to local rants, forums, local search and social networking features still in the pipeline and a blog platform that Arron is even now test driving, the site offers-you guessed it-free business classifieds.
You can post the ad for up to 30 days but obviously that allows you to change your message from time to time.
Additional business solutions will cost you $19.95 a month or $200 a year, but the basic listing is free.
And here's a site that even combines business marketing and social networking, with the "about" section proudly proclaiming:
DirectMatches is the first in the online business and social networking industry to deploy a multi-matchmaking system that helps people locate everything from business contacts to finding friendship and dates online.
Again there are some extra paid services, but a simple listing is free. Then, of course, there's Craig's List where all postings are free outside New York, Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay area.
Even online versions of publications like the Dallas Observer have gotten into the act with a free classified listing in its backpage.com section.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, of course, but my point is don't, don't, don't ever pay for one of these listings because freebies are everywhere. There are a lot more important things bootstrappers need to spend their hard pinched pennies on than online classified.