HubSpot’s partner directory is a site dedicated to helping customers and prospects find a partner for their inbound marketing efforts. This year we plan to make some big changes to the site in order to drive more businesses to use the directory to find marketing and sales service providers.

Today we are excited to launch a redesigned agency directory, built from the ground up to modernize the site. The goal of these changes is to dramatically increase the number of visitors we send to our partner directory and to expand our service offering footprint. We want to use this blog post to tell you about two major changes.

1.) The new design and supporting infrastructure 

We redesigned the directory to ensure it was more user-friendly and mobile optimized. The larger changes are harder to see but will have a massive impact. We moved the directory from app.hubspot.com to hubspot.com and updated the code supporting the directory. We are using HubDB to power this redesigned directory. What this means is that the directory will become far more visible to a new audience. Before many pages on the directory were not indexed by Google and other search engines. That will change in next few weeks. We expect this change to lead to increased traffic for the partners listed in the directory. This helps us with our goal of bringing more leads to our partners.

2.) We will open the directory up to all partners.

Previously, a profile in the directory was a tiered benefit of the agency partner program. In the future, this benefit will be open to all HubSpot partners regardless of their tier level. We want to expand the number of services we offer, the number of industries we have expertise in, and the locations we serve. The way to do that is to allow for all marketing and sales agencies who are part of the program to build and publish their own profile. We understand this is a big change so we did our best to answer questions you may have about this update below.

Details on the new design

Here are few details on what you will see when you visit the new directory. 

1) An updated design that more aligns with HubSpot's brand.

2) We will replace the "Hire a Partner" page on HubSpot.com and link directly to the directory from the main HubSpot navigation. 

3) We updated the URLs of your profile so that it contains your agency's name as opposed to your portal ID. 

4) Your logo may look different. If it looks larger than before we suggest uploading a new logo to your profile. 

5) We will now display all your certifications as opposed to limiting your profile to 12 certifications. 

You may also notice we removed a few features from your profile, most noticeably case studies and the ability to leave new reviews. We plan to add these features back over the next few months. We wanted to revisit and improve both of these features. We understand reviews are critical to a directory. So we moved over your old reviews while we work on a revamped new review system. Your case studies should be more discoverable and we are working on a better way to display those case studies. We will keep you updated as we get closer to adding those features back to every profile. 

Opening up the directory to Untiered Partners

Why are you making this change?

To expand our offerings through the directory, with an emphasis on services, industries and locations. We want to ensure that when a visitor looks for an agency in a specific city we have agencies listed in that city. The same applies to industry and services queries. As the HubSpot product evolves we want to ensure the directory supports all HubSpot users.

For example, up to this point, our Sales Partners have not been listed in the directory. This will change when we open up the directory to untiered partners.

Are you worried about the integrity of the directory?

To become a HubSpot partner, an agency goes through a very rigorous sales process and then starts working with a consultant. We trust these agencies to deliver quality work and to help businesses grow.

As a tiered partner, what will change for me?

We will continue to list partners by tier, by default. Which means the higher your tier, the higher your position in the directory. We expect tiered partners to benefit from this change. The more the directory is promoted and used, the more it will grow. We also have a few other plans to feature our tiered partners in creative ways now that we have more flexibility.

We understand you might still have questions. Please comment below and our team will answer your questions.

Timing and Dates 

The new designed for the directory is live now. Check it out! 

We will officially open the directory open to untiered partners in March. Date is to be determined.