Terms & Conditions

Section 1

About these terms

These terms govern every service supplied by [PLACEHOLDER — registered company name] (“we”, “us”), a company registered in England and Wales with company number [PLACEHOLDER — company registration number] and registered office at [PLACEHOLDER — registered office address]. We trade as The Business Directory and operate this website.

By placing an order you accept these terms. Together with the order you place at checkout or the written proposal we send you, they form the whole contract between us. If anything in an individual written proposal contradicts these terms, the proposal wins for that contract only.

You can reach us on +44 1494 265219 or at [PLACEHOLDER — contact email address]. Our office hours are Monday to Friday, 9am to 6pm, excluding English bank holidays.

Section 2

Definitions

• Services — the services described in section 4 and set out in your order.
• Plan — the specific package and tier you select at checkout (for example the Regional directory plan, or the Premium website build).
• Subscription Service — a Service charged monthly and continuing until cancelled.
• One-off Service — a Service charged as a single fee for a defined deliverable.
• Your Content — the business information, text, images, logos, reviews and other material you give us or ask us to publish.
• Platform — any third-party site or service your listing or advertising is published on, such as Google, Bing, Yell, Meta or TikTok.
• Consumer — an individual acting wholly or mainly outside their trade, business, craft or profession.

Section 3

Placing an order and when the contract starts

Everything shown on this website is an invitation to treat, not an offer. Selecting plans at checkout and submitting your billing details creates a pending order — an offer from you to buy on these terms. No payment is taken at that moment; the website does not collect card details.

A contract is formed only when we confirm your order in writing (by email) or start work on it, whichever happens first. We may decline an order — because a plan is unsuitable for your business, because we cannot verify your business, because you operate in a sector we do not serve (section 18), or because a price on the site was obviously wrong. If we decline, any money you have paid is refunded in full.

We aim to contact you within one working day of a pending order to confirm the details, agree a start date and arrange payment.

Section 4

The services we sell

We sell six services. Prices below are the standard published prices at the time this page was last updated; the price that applies to you is the one shown at checkout when your order is confirmed.

Directory Listings

We set up and optimise your Google Business Profile and submit and maintain consistent listings for your business across our directory network, within the geographic radius of the plan you buy — from an 8-mile radius on Local up to nationwide on Kingdom and international on Global. The plan also includes a monthly performance report, an analytics dashboard and a named UK account manager. This is a continuing monthly subscription: listings need ongoing maintenance because Platforms change their data, merge duplicates and expire entries.

Online Marketing

We plan, build, run and optimise paid advertising campaigns on the platforms included in your tier — Google on Bronze; Google and Meta on Silver; Google, Meta and TikTok on Gold and above — with creative production, keyword research, campaign testing and a named account manager. Platinum adds directory placements and Diamond adds a three-month SEO programme.

Website Design

A one-off project, not a subscription. We design and build a responsive 3-page website (5-page available at the upgrade price shown on your plan) including hosting, an SSL certificate, a contact form and click-to-call. Premium adds a custom domain, unlimited text and image edits and on-site SEO setup; Expert adds keyword research, backlinks, a content writer and a dedicated website specialist. Our published build time is 5 to 7 working days from the point we have everything we need from you.

Google Guaranteed

Google Guaranteed is Google's own certification programme. We act as your application partner: we check your eligibility, review and prepare your documents, submit the application and track its status. The Managed plan adds Local Services Ads setup, a monthly performance review and a named account manager. The decision to approve you is Google's alone. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by or acting as an agent of Google, we cannot influence the outcome, and our fee pays for the work of preparing and submitting the application, not for a result. Background checks, licence and insurance checks and any Google fees are set by Google and are your responsibility.

Hire a Manager

A monthly retainer for a named specialist working on your account in one of four disciplines — social media, reputation, Google Ads or brand — for 10 hours a week (part-time) or 40 hours a week (full-time). The specialist is our employee or contractor, not yours: we remain responsible for how the work is done, and no employment relationship arises between you and them. Unused hours do not roll over into the following month.

Grow Your Business

A bundle that combines several of the above at a single monthly price. The Growth Bundle covers website, SEO, directory listings and review management; Full-stack adds Google Guaranteed and paid advertising. Bundles are sold as a whole — individual components cannot be cancelled separately while the bundle continues, and the bundle price does not reduce if you stop using part of it.

Section 5

Prices, VAT and payment

All prices are in pounds sterling. Prices displayed on this site are [PLACEHOLDER — state whether displayed prices include or exclude VAT]. Our VAT registration number is [PLACEHOLDER — VAT registration number, or 'not VAT registered']. Where VAT applies it is charged at the rate in force on the tax point date and shown separately on your invoice.

We accept payment by card, Direct Debit, bank transfer, or against an invoice we issue. Card details are never entered on this website; payment is arranged after your order is confirmed. Invoices are due [PLACEHOLDER — payment terms, e.g. 14 days from invoice date] unless your order says otherwise.

If you are a business and you pay late, we may charge statutory interest and fixed compensation under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 — interest at 8% above the Bank of England base rate, running from the day after payment was due. We may also suspend the Services under section 17 until the account is brought up to date.

Promotional codes apply only to the plans and periods stated when the code is issued, cannot be combined unless we say so, have no cash value and can be withdrawn at any time before an order is confirmed. Any discount that runs for a fixed number of months ends automatically after that period and the standard price applies from the next billing date.

Section 6

Monthly subscriptions: renewal and cancellation

Directory Listings, Online Marketing, Google Guaranteed (Managed), Hire a Manager and Grow Your Business are monthly subscriptions. They start on the date we confirm your order, run for one month, and renew automatically each month until cancelled. There is no minimum term and no exit fee.

Cancelling

You can cancel at any time by telling us in writing — email is fine — or through your dashboard where that option is available. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the month you have already paid for. We do not charge you again after that, and we do not refund part of a month already paid, because the work for that month has already been carried out.

To avoid being charged for the following month, cancel at least [PLACEHOLDER — notice period before the renewal date, e.g. 7 days] before your renewal date. If you cancel after that, the coming month is charged and the Services run to the end of it.

What happens to your listings when you cancel

We stop maintaining, updating and optimising your listings at the end of the paid period, and we remove you from any placements that exist only because of your subscription. Entries already published on third-party Platforms do not vanish automatically — those Platforms control their own data. We will request removal from the Platforms we submitted you to if you ask us to, but we cannot guarantee how quickly they act, or that they will act at all. Rankings, reviews and traffic gained while you were a customer are not something we can take back or preserve for you.

Your account and dashboard access continue to the end of the paid period. Export anything you want to keep before then — see our Privacy Notice for how long we keep records afterwards.

If we cancel

We can end a subscription on 30 days' written notice. If we do, we refund the unused part of any period you have paid for in advance.

Section 7

One-off projects: delivery and ownership

Website Design is a one-off project. Our published turnaround of 5 to 7 working days runs from the point we have everything we need from you — text, images, logo, domain access and your answers to our questions. Delays caused by waiting for material from you extend the timescale by at least the length of the delay. Timescales are targets, not conditions of the contract, unless we have agreed a fixed date in writing.

When the build is ready we send it to you for review. If we do not hear from you within [PLACEHOLDER — acceptance window, e.g. 10 working days] of sending it, the work is treated as accepted and the project is complete. Requests that go beyond what your plan includes — extra pages, a change of direction after sign-off, new functionality — are quoted separately and become their own order.

Ownership of the finished website design and the bespoke content we create for it passes to you when you have paid in full. Until then we license it to you only for review. Things we do not own — stock images, fonts, plugins, themes and third-party components — stay with their owners and reach you on their own licence terms, which we will tell you about. Anything we built before your project, and our own tools, templates, frameworks and know-how, remain ours; you get a perpetual, non-exclusive licence to use them as part of your site.

Hosting and the SSL certificate are provided for the period stated in your plan. If you move the site elsewhere we will provide an export of your files and content; migrating and configuring the site at the new host is not included unless quoted.

Section 8

What we need from you

To do the work we have been paid for, you agree to:

• Give us accurate, current and complete information about your business — name, address, phone number, opening hours, services and category. Listings syndicated from wrong information do real damage to your search visibility, and correcting them across every Platform takes far longer than getting them right once.
• Tell us promptly when any of it changes, particularly your address, phone number or trading name.
• Confirm that you own or are licensed to use everything you send us — logos, photographs, copy, testimonials — and that publishing it will not infringe anyone's rights.
• Hold any licence, registration, qualification or insurance your trade requires, and tell us if that lapses. Some Platforms and the Google Guaranteed programme verify these independently.
• Give us the access we need — to your Google Business Profile, domain registrar, existing website or advertising accounts — and keep it in place while we are working.
• Respond to approval requests within a reasonable time. Campaigns and builds sitting on an unanswered approval are the most common cause of missed timescales.
• Not ask us to publish anything false, misleading, defamatory, discriminatory or in breach of the CAP Code or a Platform's policies.

You grant us a licence to use Your Content for the sole purpose of delivering the Services — including submitting it to Platforms and publishing it in our directory — for as long as you are a customer.

Section 9

Third-party platforms and things outside our control

A large part of what we do is submit and maintain your information on Platforms we do not own or control. Google, Bing, Apple, Meta, TikTok, Yell, Trustpilot and every other Platform set their own rules, approve or reject entries on their own criteria, change their ranking systems without notice and can suspend or remove a listing at any time.

We therefore cannot and do not promise that:

• any particular Platform will accept, approve or keep your listing;
• a Platform will not change its algorithm, layout, policies or pricing;
• a Platform will remove an entry when asked, or do so quickly;
• an application to a third-party programme, including Google Guaranteed, will succeed.

What we do promise is that we will carry out the work with reasonable care and skill, to the standard of a competent provider of these services, and that we will tell you honestly when a Platform has rejected something and what we are doing about it.

Section 10

Results, rankings and guarantees

Search rankings, enquiry volumes, click-through rates, conversion rates and revenue depend on your market, your competitors, your pricing, your reviews, your website and decisions made by Platforms we do not control. Except where a written guarantee is expressly given under this section, we do not warrant any particular ranking, position, traffic level, number of enquiries, or return on investment. Figures used in our marketing describe past results for other businesses and are not a forecast for yours.

Where a guarantee is given

Where your plan states a ranking or position guarantee, it applies only on the terms below:

• It applies to the keywords and the geographic radius agreed in writing at the start, and is measured by [PLACEHOLDER — the agreed measurement method and tool] from a neutral, non-personalised search.
• It is assessed no earlier than [PLACEHOLDER — the qualifying period, e.g. 6 months] after the Services start, to allow the Platforms time to index and trust the new data.
• It is conditional on you meeting your obligations in section 9 — access granted, approvals returned, information accurate, invoices paid.
• If the target is not met, the remedy is [PLACEHOLDER — the remedy, e.g. continued work at no charge until met, or a refund of N months]. That remedy is your sole and exclusive remedy for failing to reach the target.
• It does not apply where a Platform suspends your listing for reasons attributable to you, where you change your business name, address or phone number without telling us, or where you run competing SEO activity that conflicts with ours.

Section 11

If you are a consumer: your 14-day cancellation right

Our services are sold to businesses, and most customers contract in the course of their trade. If you are buying wholly or mainly outside your business, you are a Consumer and the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 give you a right to cancel within 14 days of the contract being formed, without giving a reason.

To cancel, tell us clearly within that period — email [PLACEHOLDER — contact email address] or call +44 1494 265219. You may use the model cancellation form in the Regulations, but you do not have to.

If you ask us to start work during the 14-day period and then cancel, you must pay a proportionate amount for what has already been supplied. If the work has been fully performed within that period with your express agreement and your acknowledgement that you would lose the cancellation right, the right is lost. Refunds due are made within 14 days of you telling us you are cancelling, by the same method you paid.

Nothing in these terms affects your statutory rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, including the right to services carried out with reasonable care and skill.

Section 12

Refunds

Outside the consumer cancellation right in section 12, our position is straightforward:

• Monthly subscriptions — no refund of a month already started, because the work for that month has been done. Cancel and the subscription simply stops at the end of it.
• One-off projects — if you cancel after work has begun, we charge for the work completed to that point and refund the balance. Deposits cover work already scheduled and are non-refundable once the project has started.
• Where we get it wrong — if we fail to supply a Service with reasonable care and skill, tell us and we will put it right at no charge. If we cannot, we will refund the part of the fee that relates to the work affected.
• Third-party costs — money already paid out on your behalf to a Platform, registrar or certification programme cannot be refunded by us once it has been spent.

Section 13

Intellectual property

Everything on this website — the software, design, text, graphics and our name and logo — belongs to us or our licensors. You may view and print pages for your own business use; you may not copy, republish, scrape or use our content commercially without our written permission.

Your Content stays yours. Deliverables we create specifically for you transfer to you on payment in full, as set out in section 8.

We would like to mention that we work with you — your name and logo in a client list, a short case study, or a testimonial you have given us. Tell us at any time that you would rather we did not, and we will remove it from our own materials at the next reasonable opportunity.

Section 14

Confidentiality

Each of us may learn confidential information about the other — commercial terms, strategy, performance figures, account credentials. Neither of us will disclose it to anyone else or use it for anything other than performing this contract, except where disclosure is required by law or a regulator, or where the information is already public through no fault of the person disclosing it. This obligation continues for three years after the contract ends.

Section 15

Data protection

How we handle personal data is set out in our Privacy Notice, which forms part of these terms.

For your own contact and billing details, and for the business information we publish, we each act as an independent controller and each of us is responsible for our own compliance with the UK GDPR. Where we process personal data on your behalf and on your instructions — for example customer contact details you upload for a review campaign, or enquiry data captured through a website we built for you — we act as your processor. In that case we will only act on your documented instructions, keep the data confidential, apply appropriate security, help you respond to data subject requests, and delete or return the data at the end of the contract. A separate Article 28 data processing agreement applies to that processing.

Section 16

Our liability to you

Nothing in these terms limits or excludes our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be limited — including, for Consumers, the statutory rights in the Consumer Rights Act 2015.

Subject to that, and where you contract as a business:

• We are not liable for loss of profit, loss of revenue, loss of business, loss of anticipated savings, loss of goodwill or reputation, loss of search rankings, or any indirect or consequential loss, however it arises.
• Our total liability for all claims connected with a contract is limited to the total fees you paid us under that contract in the 12 months before the claim arose.
• We are not liable for anything a Platform does or fails to do, including rejecting, suspending, altering or removing your listing or advertising, or changing how it ranks results.
• We are not liable for loss arising from information you gave us that was inaccurate or out of date, or from your failure to give us access or approvals we asked for.

You are responsible for keeping your own backups of any content you supply to us and for the security of your account credentials.

Section 17

Suspension and termination

We may suspend or end the Services, on notice to you, if:

• an invoice is more than [PLACEHOLDER — days overdue before suspension, e.g. 14] days overdue and remains unpaid after we have asked you to pay it;
• you materially breach these terms and do not put it right within 14 days of us asking;
• you ask us to publish something unlawful, misleading or in breach of a Platform's policies;
• you become insolvent, enter an insolvency procedure or stop trading;
• continuing would expose us or a Platform to legal or regulatory risk.

You may end a subscription under section 6. On termination for any reason, fees for work already done and costs already committed on your behalf remain payable, and the sections that are meant to survive — confidentiality, intellectual property, data protection, liability and governing law — continue to apply.

Section 18

Businesses and content we will not promote

We do not accept orders from, or publish listings and advertising for, businesses involved in: unlicensed financial services, unlicensed credit or debt advice, unlicensed gambling, adult services, illegal drugs or unregulated substances, weapons, counterfeit goods, hacking or account-selling services, pyramid schemes or multi-level marketing recruitment, or anything else prohibited by law or by the Platforms we submit to.

We also will not publish content that is defamatory, discriminatory, harassing, misleading under the CAP Code, or that infringes someone else's intellectual property. We will tell you if we cannot proceed for one of these reasons, and refund anything paid for work not done.

Section 19

Changes to the services and to these terms

We improve and adjust the Services over time. We may change how a Service is delivered provided the change does not materially reduce what you receive.

We may change the price of a subscription by giving you at least 30 days' written notice before it takes effect. If you do not accept the new price, cancel before it applies and you will not be charged it.

We may update these terms. The version that applies to your contract is the one published when your order was confirmed, unless we tell you about a change and you continue to use the Services after it takes effect. The “last updated” date at the top of this page shows the current version.

Section 20

Events outside our control

Neither of us is liable for failing to perform because of something genuinely outside our reasonable control — including failure of a Platform or of internet infrastructure, cyber attack, power or telecommunications failure, fire, flood, epidemic, industrial action, war or an act of government. We will tell you as soon as we can, do what we reasonably can to work around it, and if the disruption continues for more than 30 days either of us may end the affected Service without penalty.

Section 21

Complaints

If something has gone wrong, tell your account manager first, or email [PLACEHOLDER — contact email address]. We will acknowledge your complaint within 2 working days and give you a full response within 10 working days, or explain why we need longer.

We are not currently a member of an alternative dispute resolution scheme. If you are a Consumer and we cannot resolve your complaint, you can seek independent advice from Citizens Advice, and either of us may take the matter to court.

Section 22

General

• Assignment. You may not transfer your contract without our written consent. We may transfer ours to a company that takes over our business, and will tell you if we do.
• Entire agreement. These terms and your order are the whole agreement between us and replace anything said or written before. Neither of us relies on any statement not set out in them, though nothing excludes liability for fraudulent misrepresentation.
• Severance. If any clause is found unenforceable, the rest continues in force.
• Waiver. If we do not insist on something straight away, that does not stop us insisting on it later.
• Third parties. Nobody other than you and us has any right to enforce these terms under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999.
• Notices. Notices to us go to the email or postal address in section 1; notices to you go to the email address on your account. Email notices take effect the next working day after sending.

Section 23

Governing law

These terms and any dispute arising from them are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction. If you are a Consumer resident in Scotland or Northern Ireland, you may also bring proceedings in the courts of the country you live in, and the mandatory consumer protection law of that country applies to you.