Getting your product listed in directories

Your office writes your listing once and you approve it once; after that it registers on the directories itself, fills in each form, sends it and tells you what it did. It stops and hands you the page only where a directory asks for a verification, a code sent to your phone or a payment, and a directory that takes entries only from its owner stays yours to send. What is still limited today is at the end of this page.

Who this is for

Your CEO offers a directory campaign when you ask about getting your product listed in app stores, directories or marketplaces. The list depends on your kind of business; for some kinds, such as a shop selling its own brand online, your office has no list, and your CEO says so. The offer says on how many of the directories your office registers and sends by itself, and ends with a yes-or-no question; your yes, in a later message, starts the work.

The tracker is “Directory listings” in the left rail, beside Pipeline and Outreach; the listing kit waits for your approval in your Review queue — see Approvals.

Step 1 — approve the listing kit

1. Your Sales team writes one listing kit from your own material: name, descriptions, categories, logo and screenshots. If something is missing, the kit says so; send it to your CEO in chat.
2. The kit arrives in your Review queue with “About 60 credits” and “Paid from your credits. A directory that charges its own fee is paid by you, directly to that directory, and is not part of this figure.” Each directory it lists is marked “your office sends it”, “you send it” or “charges a fee”.
3. You approve the kit once. When your office may open any of the directories, the card says: “Once you approve, your office signs up to these directories itself, fills in the forms from what it knows about you, sends them and tells you; it stops at any directory that asks for a verification or a payment.” There is no second approval per form.

Your office opens its directory accounts in your name with the Google account you linked for your business, so link it first — see Blog and forum accounts. A directory row costs no credits of its own. What a credit is: see Credits.

Step 2 — your office registers and sends each form

After your approval every directory is on your tracker. One your office sends reads “In line — it goes out shortly”, or names a time: your office sends a few a day, in daytime hours where you are, so a campaign takes several days. Then the row reads “Being sent”: your office signs up there (or signs in), reads the form as it is that day, fills it in from your listing profile and sends it.

Your listing profile is the kit you approved plus the answers you gave your CEO; the same answer goes into the same field on every directory. Your office writes it under What your CEO knows (see What your office knows) when it starts on its first directory.

The notification bell tells you when your office has sent a form, and when it stopped on one for a check, a payment, an answer it did not have, or a form it could not finish or confirm; other stops show on the tracker only. At the end: “Your directory campaign is finished”, with how many are live, sent and waiting for you. If a form asks for something your profile does not have, nothing is sent there, the row reads “Could not be sent” and the notification asks: “Tell your CEO the missing answer in chat — it is kept for the next directories.”

A directory that takes entries only from its owner — such as Product Hunt, G2, Crunchbase or Wellfound — goes straight to “Waiting for you” with your text ready; one that charges a fee waits for you too.

Step 3 — send it yourself and add the link

When a row reads “Waiting for you” with “This one you send yourself — your text is ready to copy”, or reads “Could not be sent”:

1. Press “Copy the text”. The filled form goes to your clipboard, starting with the directory’s name and the address of its form.
2. Open that address, paste each field into the directory’s own form and send it. If the directory wants an account first, you open one yourself.
3. Press “I sent it — add the link”, paste the address of your entry if you have one (“No link yet? You can leave this empty.”) and press “Save”. The row reads “Sent — the directory is reviewing it”. This step has a limit today, explained at the end of this page.
4. When your entry is published, press “It is live — paste the link”, paste its address and press “Save”. The row reads “Live”.

When a directory asks for money

The row reads “This directory charges a fee:” with the directory’s own price, or “This directory charges a fee — its own page has the amount”. Press “Open the payment page” and pay the directory yourself. Then press “I paid — continue” and answer “Did you pay this directory’s fee yourself? Your office never pays on your behalf.” with “Yes, I paid”; the row goes back in line, and your office fills in the form and sends it. If the directory still asks for money while your office is sending the form, the office stops: “Could not be sent”.

When a directory asks for a human check

This happens only while your office sends a form itself: “This directory wants a human check — you have about 8 min”. A page that asks for a one-time code — one sent to your phone by text message, for example — counts as a human check too; your office never types such a code. Press “Let me verify”, pass the check with your own hands in the window that opens, then press “Continue” there, and the office finishes the form. If the time runs out: “The time for this one has run out — you can still send it yourself.” A directory that keeps asking ends as “Could not be sent”.

Leaving a directory out

Press “Skip” on a row that has not gone out: “Leave this directory out of the campaign? Nothing has been sent to it.” Pick “I am already listed there”, “It is not right for my product” or “I would rather not”, then “Yes, skip it”. Skip the directories you are already listed on soon after you approve the kit; “I am already listed there” also keeps them out of your next campaigns.

Reading the tracker

The tracker’s top line counts “Directories”, “Live” and “Waiting for you”. On your phone, the Business section shows the same tracker to read only; every action needs a computer.

The row says	What you do
“In line — it goes out shortly”	Nothing; your office sends it in its turn
“Being sent”	Nothing; the office is at it
“Waiting for you”	Read the line under it
“Sent — the directory is reviewing it”	“It is live — paste the link” once published
“The directory approved it — waiting to be published”	The same
“Live”	“See the listing”
“Rejected”	Read the reason, if one was given
“Skipped”	Nothing; it is left out
“Could not be sent”	Read its notification, if one came, then “Copy the text” and “I sent it — add the link”

When your office sent a form itself and has a link to your entry, it looks at that link again about 3, 7 and 21 days later to see whether your entry went live.

Some lines appear only while the office works on a directory itself, each saying what is left for you — such as “This directory is not taking new entries from us — you can try it yourself”.

Your office runs one campaign at a time: a new kit can start only once the current kit is decided and no row is still “In line” or “Being sent”. A new kit leaves out the directories you are already listed on — sent by your office, marked as sent by you, or skipped with “I am already listed there” — and its card counts them: “Left out because you are already listed there”. Your office checks every directory weekly and leaves one that has closed or moved out of new campaigns.

What your office never does

• It never pays a directory, types into a payment form, answers a verification or types a code sent to your phone for you.
• It sends nothing to any directory before you approve the kit, and fills in forms only from your listing profile. When a form asks for something your profile does not contain, it stops instead of guessing.
• It never files a directory that takes entries only from its owner; that one stays yours to send.
• It cannot take a published listing down: “A published listing lives on the directory’s own site.”

When it does not work

• “This one has already moved on — refresh to see where it stands.” — press “Refresh”. If the row stays the same, read the block below.
• “Could not load your directories” — press “Try again”.
• A row that never leaves “In line — it goes out shortly” — nothing has been sent to that directory; read the block below and ask your CEO.
• Anything else: ask your CEO, naming the directory.

What your office does today

• Today the directory that asked for a missing answer is not tried again in the same campaign once you give the answer to your CEO (the directories after it use it): send that one yourself, or it comes back in your next campaign.
• Today “Copy the text” copies your kit alone, without the answers you gave your CEO; type those yourself.
• Today a form your office sent without seeing a confirmation reads “Could not be sent” although it went out; its notification says: “Check the directory before sending it again.”
• Today a row can also stay “In line — it goes out shortly” and not move: sending to outside websites is then held on the platform’s side, which the tracker does not show. Nothing has gone out.
• Today “I sent it — add the link” works only on a row that reads “Could not be sent”, or on a “Waiting for you” row that also shows “This directory only accepts entries from the owner, so it is yours to send — the text below is ready.” On every other “Waiting for you” row — one that reads “This directory is not taking new entries from us — you can try it yourself”, say, or one that reads “This one you send yourself — your text is ready to copy” without that line, as a directory your office could not sign up or sign in to does — the button answers “This one has already moved on — refresh to see where it stands.” and the row stays “Waiting for you”.
• Once you have sent such a directory yourself, press “Skip”, pick “I am already listed there” and press “Yes, skip it” (“Nothing has been sent to it” means from your office). The row reads “Skipped” and keeps no link; your entry on the directory is what counts.
• Today the office does not look again at a form you sent yourself; on a “Sent — the directory is reviewing it” row, tell the tracker once published.
• Today “It is not right for my product” and “I would rather not” count for this campaign only; the next one proposes the same directory again. Your office knows only the listings on your tracker: for one you made elsewhere, skip its row with “I am already listed there”.
• Today a campaign started before your office sent forms by itself can still show rows reading “Waiting for your approval”. “Review and approve” opens that directory’s form in your Review queue: approve it and the row goes “In line” like the others, or reject it — or press “Skip” — to leave the directory out. Until every such row is decided, a new kit cannot start.
• This block changes when these do; the date at the bottom of the page tells you when it was last checked.