The story about Business A2Z is both long and short, dull and interesting!
It started in early 2001. It was going to be an awesome business directory of service providers that businesses would access to help them with essential services. In a nutshell an approved list of service providers.
In 2023 comparsion sites and review systems dont make it any easier to find a service that fits 'your' criteria. How businesses choose the essential services is still very much down to not 'searching for a stranger' but going with a recommendation. Someone in your network of friends. Not the old boys network, oh no. You couldn't trust one of those as far as you could throw them, could you? Trust Pilot an old boy network recommendation?
So what do you need as an essential service? Or what are the essential services, every business needs. Is Business Networking a service?
Accountant
Solicitor
Insurer
Consultant (Marketing, Sales, Brand & PR)
Recruitment
Financial Advisor
Transport - Vehicles
Premises - Land - Estate Agent
All of the above should be familar with your products and services and the market secort your business operates in. Familar at the very least.
Business A2Z wanted to be able to list service providers that would not let any business down. It wanted to list contact details for services that would jump on a problem to solve and be of value. The internet was new! Yellow Pages was still in print and it was already online too. Businesses advertised their services in Yell so why would they 'advertise' on an unknown website directory and one that was fast becoming yet another one to advertise on or be listed for free. Free listings on website directories was becoming an activity for SEO professionals. SEO was invented and being a business for some was all about being found on the new digital wild west aka the internet. No, Google is NOT the internet! To be found meant being at the stop of search results on one of the many search engines not just Google, see (A Brief History of Internet Search Engines). If not found through a search on a search engine it was found on a business directory. Apps and Go to websites as a resource were not established before 2010 so businesses were just doing as best they could to win more business. What's changed? Nothing and everything! Data for one thing and tracking data! The internet has enabled businesses to fine tune their ad spend, their marketing activity to what works or converts! And data makes it possible to make improvements. Those that have understood this have grown successfully and those that have not have been left behind.
As for Business A2Z, its still a domain name. It can still be found by search for business a2z but what does it offer and who does it offer it to? Quite quickly it was realised that just being another business directory offers no real value to a business searching for a specific trusted service and unless the business details on Business A2Z had committed itself to a detailed and transparent profile that listing served no value (unless it was was found by businesses and conatced by businesses every week, week after week). So Business A2Z became an online publication publishing useful articles and interesting articles. For a short while the intention was to grow organic search traffic and become an organic lead generation platform. However, this involves considerable amount of time and investment. So it was parked up as an idea to be returned to. Knowing that paid for traffic is the fastest way to generate sales shouldn't be a reason not to pursue traffic from organic seo search. Traffic generated through search if aligned to the product and service should convert.
Still with the very best intention to serve busineses looking for services and advice to help grow their business, a fun game was considered. A business work game guru! But not just a game a virtual advisor. A tool to help clarify and generate ideas to assist in growth. Straplines for marketing have to be clear. So this game helps with creating straplines and marketing content. Business A2Z is all about helping business owners grow their business.
What does every business need to do in order to be successful? Well, it needs to do more than just this one thing but it does need to do this at the very least! Sell. Sell its products and services. Being found on the internet is just one step to growing your business. Steps to grow your business are more like processes and linea. Cyclical processes done right will achieve success. Often the processes for successful businesses are in place. Unless your business is a startup.
Helping startup businesses is challenging but rewarding. The objective of Business A2Z is to help business owners, entrepeurs, consultants, startups with growing their business.
Think of a word that will help your business grow. Say it out aloud.
Put in the form below with your email and lets start the journey of growth.
Add the market place of your business it operates in for some fun trend facts.
Are you ready to take steps to grow your business and increase your sales? The team behind Business A2Z are here to help and that is what we're about. Never a hinder always a help.
PS. If you need help with your website, hosting, marketing, design, seo traffic, paid traffic, social media, we have extensive experience so drop us a quick email or call us directly.