Getting found beyond our directory

Your profile here is one place families find you. It works better when it isn't the only one — and there are two free listings worth claiming that make a real difference.

Why we're telling you this

It's a fair question: why would a directory encourage you to go set up a listing somewhere else?

Because it isn't a competition. Your Google listing wins when someone already knows your name and searches for it — that search was never coming to us anyway. We win when a family searches for something like "family-friendly DJ in Northern Virginia," which your Google listing can't really answer, because Google has no way to say "family-friendly" about a business.

So the two do different jobs. Your Google listing establishes that your business is real. We establish what makes it right for families. When both exist and agree with each other, search engines trust both of them more.

Google Business Profile

This is the big one. It's free, it's what fills in the business panel on the right of a Google search, and it's what puts you on Google Maps.

1. Go to google.com/business and sign in.
2. Search for your business — it may already exist as an unclaimed listing.
3. Claim it, or create it if it isn't there.
4. Verify it. Google will ask for a phone call, an email, a video, or a postcard. This step can take a few days.

If you work from home and don't want your address public, you can set yourself up as a service-area business — you list the areas you serve instead of a street address. Most DJs, photographers, and entertainers should do this.

Bing Places

Smaller, and honestly a smaller payoff — but it's free and takes about ten minutes, and Bing data feeds a few other places. Go to bingplaces.com and, if you already have a Google listing, use its import option rather than typing everything again.

Adding them to your profile here

Once you have either listing, paste its link into the Business listings section of your Photo & links page.

For Google, the easiest link is the one the Share button on your listing gives you. Your Google Maps address works too.

What we do with those links

Two things.

Families see them on your profile as ordinary links — another place to read about you.

Less visibly, but more usefully: we publish them in the structured data behind your profile as a statement that your listing and this profile are the same business. That's a signal search engines and AI assistants use to connect the two. It means that when something reads your profile and learns you're great with kids, it can attach that to the business it already knows about, instead of treating it as a claim from a page it can't place.

This is also why we ask you to link your own listing. A link to someone else's would be us telling search engines something untrue about who you are, so we check these links, and changing one sends your profile for a quick re-review. Your profile stays visible while we look.

Keep the details consistent

Use the same business name, phone number, and address everywhere — your Google listing, Bing, your website, your profile here. Search engines compare these across sites and treat consistency as a sign the business is legitimate. Small differences ("Bob's DJ Service" in one place, "Bob's DJs LLC" in another) quietly dilute that. It's a boring detail that matters more than it looks.

No website? That's fine

If you don't have a website at all, your profile here works as a stand-in — it's a real, indexed page with your own address. A Google listing plus a profile here is a perfectly respectable web presence to start from.

You'll also be able to add a short, shareable ffelink — a clean web address (like ffelink.com/v/your-name) that points straight to your listing, handy for business cards, social bios, and flyers. Learn about ffelink.

Questions? Get in touch and we'll help.