LiveryList Focus On… Marketing Your Yard Effectively

LiveryList is the UK’s #1 Livery Yard Directory.

We want advertisers on our site to get the best from their listing, to make sure it stands out and to help you get those vacancies filled! This advice doesn’t just apply to our site, but should be the same for anywhere you advertise your business. Don’t miss out on clients because of silly mistakes or omissions, and don’t be afraid to shout about how wonderful you are!

We frequently get feedback from users of the site about failing links, outdated contact details and missing photos … is this you? Please take a quick look at our tips below and log in to your account to give your listing a quick check over and an update.

CHECK YOUR CONTACT DETAILS. One of the most frustrating comments we hear from our users is that sometimes they do not get a reply when they enquire to a yard. If you’ve moved yards, changed numbers or email address please check your contact details shown on your listing are both current and correct, otherwise you won’t be able to hear from the people interested in your vacancies, facility hire or services! Chance is they won’t try to contact you again just because you’ve entered a digit wrong or not kept the details up to date and they could have had a horse ready to move in tomorrow!

CHECK WHAT YOU OFFER. There are so many options to add to your listing from livery packages and riding facilities to services you offer and we are always adding more. Make sure you keep up to date with what you show on your listing. Offering a new or updated livery package? … make sure you add it! Have a new arena installed, upgraded the stables or bought some new jumps? … Make sure you add it- why not add updated photos of improvements as well! Even better we follow all of our yards on Facebook so if you post about it and we see it, we love posting picks of our yards to share with our users!

NO PHOTOS. Does your listing look like this? Do you know that potentially makes it less appealing to users of the site. You can add up to 4 photos on a normal listing, and an unlimited amount on a featured listing. It’s quick and easy to add even just one photo to your listing so it doesn’t have the holding picture. I mean who doesn’t have a phone with a camera on these days to snap a quick picture (you can upload them on the mobile version of our site right from your phone!) and if you have any troubles we are always here to help!

THINK ABOUT YOUR LISTING TITLE. There are so many listings with the title ‘Livery Available’, ‘Full Livery’ or ‘5* Livery Yard’. By all means, describe your service but including your yard name in your listing title will make it unique, help users find your listing AND help Google pick it up in search results… As well as making it easier for us to find your listing to share!

CHECK FOR SPELLING. Many listings have spelling mistakes in their addresses, contents or even the titles of their advert. Whilst I change the ones I’ve time to… it’s not really our job! The detail entry form you complete when you first add your yard offers an auto-spellcheck (just like Word with the wiggly red lines!) so make sure you read through the details before you submit, and even check again once you’ve previewed your listing. You don’t want the overlooking of spelling to affect peoples perception of your yard as they may think you take just as little care to attention with your liveries! Make your advert stand out for the right reasons!

LET THEM SEE MORE. Do you know you can add links to Twitter and Facebook on your account. And now Instagram too! If you’ve got a featured listing you can even add a Youtube Video Tour of your yard! Please make sure you add the WHOLE of your social media web addresses including HTTP:// at the start- not just your user name otherwise- expecting to see one of your fab social media pages all about your yard and what you do- it just goes to a very boring blank page!

BROKEN LINKS THAT GO NOWHERE. Make sure the links you add for your yard website and social media do actually work. One click of a faulty link to your website and the users of the site may not bother to look any further. When you view the preview of your listing you can click the links to check they work. Mke sure your website is actually working too- sometimes when I check them, it just says ‘under construction’ or the domain name is for sale… not really useful to anyone. Don’t forget to add http:// at the front too. I always check links on listings when they are approved and intermittently send reminders out to yards who have broken links on their pages so if you get one of these… take action!

IF YOU HAVE VACANCIES LET EVERYONE KNOW. You can email us, message via Facebook or Twitter or post to our Facebook page and we will share details across all of our platforms to spread the word far and wide! You can also do this for events, staffing and facility hire or even services you offer. If we know you’ve got vacancies we can shout about them for you! Similarly, make sure you keep your vacancy status on your listing up to date or even better give details of your vacancies in the wording of your listing i.e. “two gelding DIY spaces available end of November”. Same as if you’re full you can change the status to ‘Waiting List’ or ‘No Vacancies’ which will stop unnecessary enquiries if you are busy. Make sure your listing doesn’t show this if you’ve spaces to fill though!

WE’RE HERE TO HELP. Unlike many online directories and websites, we are only a message or email away if you have any problems or questions about any aspect of your logging in, updating or managing your listing- and its always the same person you will speak to (because there’s only one person runs the whole site!) so there is no being passed pillar to post or no one knowing what you are on about. All enquiries are usually responded to within 24 hours (and it is usually within a couple of hours) so rest assured help will be on its way.

… and MOST importantly…

SPREAD THE WORD! LiveryList continues to be the UK’s #1 Livery Yard Directory with over 1.2 MILLION views of the site last year and we’re heading to beat that in 2017! You can help us by sharing the link to your LiveryList listing on your Social Media pages you help us promote our listed yards to even more people. The more people who see our site, the more views we get, the more social media follows we get, the more people see our posts and the more people see YOUR yard advertised. It just makes sense.