CityLocal Franchisees : Are You Considering?

Before the advent of online business directories such as CityLocal, searching the Internet for a local company often proved problematic. While it was possible to find a business that provided the product or service you were looking for, it was normally a challenge to gain information beyond a phone number.

Established in the summer of 2006, and the new website launched in Autumn 2010, CityLocal's mission is to make it easier for people to find the businesses they need. It's not just consumers who are able to benefit from CityLocal, though, as companies are afforded a new level of exposure that simply wouldn't have been possible from a newspaper.

The website is also providing opportunities for franchisees to establish their own local business directory under the CityLocal brand - allowing entrepreneurs to take advantage of an industry that's going from strength to strength.

So, for businesses considering CityLocal's services, what are the benefits they can expect to receive?

• By advertising in CityLocal's directory, businesses can be searched and found every day. By contrast, being listed in a newspaper lasts for a day or a finite number of days before the paper is thrown away or recycled.

• Each business profile will contain the company's name, address, phone number, fax number, email address, homepage link, a 500-word description, an image and a business logo.

• CityLocal claims that business and franchises that sign up to its service can boost their income significantly.

These benefits are being realised by franchisees looking for a new, lucrative career path. A further selling point is that CityLocal has established a reviews system, which allows potential customers to learn more about a business's reputation.

These have proven useful, but the feedback system isn't perfect. While reviewers can leave testemonials, they cannot submit star ratings - meaning that some reviews may not be complete. A further point of contention is that businesses have to pay money for their adverts, so if one received unfavourable reviews, the franchisees managing that business may choose to remove it.

However, there is little doubt that businesses and franchises have been able to achieve greater publicity by using CityLocal. Much of the website's content is search engine optimised, which means adverts rank highly on the results pages of search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo.

So, what else can CityLocal franchisees expect? Well, upon setting up their directory they'll also establish a community website, while the directory itself is updated on a daily basis by information provided from head office - including cinema listings, events listings and local news stories.

Having started to market its franchise opportunities in 2007, CityLocal now has more than 40 franchisees managing a variety of local websites, all of which have benefited from earning a respectable income while running a business that suits their lifestyle.

Referring to its franchisees as 'local business promoters', they are able to earn a living by encouraging local companies to place adverts on their site - something that increasing numbers of businesses are doing thanks to the power of the Internet. While start-up costs do have to be found, many CityLocal franchisees are earning a salary while achieving a work-life balance that may have been previously not had.