Do you want to get more customers into your local business? Do you want to reach the top of your local game?
Local SEO is what you need. It’s a must for any business with a physical location that aims to gather customers. Local SEO puts you on page one of Google’s search results without a huge amount of effort.
What you need the most is putting your business in local-business listing sites. In this blog we will look at 10 directories that can help you reach the top of your local game.
NOTE: It is important that you manually fill in your business information throughout all the directories. Also, while most directories do not pass link juice to your site, search engines such as Google still consider them when ranking local results.
It’s a great starting point for any local SEO campaign. Google My Business is where Google take information to populate its knowledge graph as well as the local pack results, which appear at the top of the local search results.
Google My Business allows you to manage your business listing, while Google reviews and monitor traffic and engagement to your page. It’s free, easy to use and will help people to find your business on a map, as well as provide signals to Google to help you show up in local search results.
Fill in your local business information and be sure to use a single version of your Name address and telephone number (NAP) whenever citing your business online. You will need to verify your account by providing a PIN number that will be sent to your physical address. Then, you must enter the PIN in your Google Places Dashboard for business verification.
Yahoo Local Listing is a free service that displays your local business address, phone number and URL and gives you the option of choosing up to five business categories. The basic free listing can include additional information such as working hours, email address, payment options, years in business and a link to your site. The paid listing option costs $9.95 per month and gives you more. You can monitor the number of viewers, upload one small photo onto the business detail page and ten large photos onto a separate page. You can also use up to two text links in search results. To sign up, you need a Yahoo ID.
- Yelp:
Since Yelp has a large user community, independent from popular search engines, it’s necessary for your business to feature on it to gain attention from this targeted audience. A Yelp business account directs textual and visual representation of your business to the categories of Yelp users that are most likely interested in your business. You can also add a link to your website on your Yelp profile and upload as many business photos you want. Customer reviews are allowed and you have the option to respond. Moreover, you also get personalized analytics to monitor the traffic. Sign Up for Free to either verify if your business is already on Yelp or create a new one.
- Bing:
For local businesses, being listed on Bing is as important as being listed on Google+ Local. You can claim your business listing that already exists or create a new one by clicking on the Get Started Now link shown in the screenshot below. To create a new listing you need to sign up for a hotmail account. After passing through a series of steps for registration, you will be prompted to enter your contact information and communication preferences. Once you have accepted the terms and conditions, you must provide information about your local business, such as, name, address, city, state, business email, Facebook and Twitter address, zip code and a logo. There is also an option to have a free mobile website and QR code. Your listing is finally verified by means of a postcard sent to you at the address you register your business with.
MerchantCircle is a popular free American local-business listing service. It retrieves information from yellow pages listings. Check if your business is already in the list by clicking the ‘Is This Your Business Listing?’ option in the business page. After signing up you get to access a comprehensive dashboard on your account that has plenty of editing options to add and modify your business details. The dashboard consists of options such as a blog, products and services, sales, deals and coupons, newsletters, pictures, videos, widgets, answers and advertisements. MerchantCircle helps you interact with other businesses and engage with potential contacts in your niche. Most importantly, this site allows you to post a link to your website, thus providing a high quality inbound link to your site.
Local.com is a search engine that lists local US businesses. It host 16 million business listings. You can claim your business listing if it already exists on the local.com database or create an entirely new listing for free.
- ExpressUpdateUSA (InfoUSA):
Infogroup has a massive database of businesses in the US and also partners directly with top search engines and local business directories. By claiming and optimizing your listing on ExpressUpdateUSA.com (previously known as InfoUSA), you can improve your position in localized SERPs. To get listed, you must first check your business listing and claim your business if it already exists on the database. Create an account for free with ExpressUpdateUSA and add the same business details that are on your website. Here is the categorized database of businesses according to the city and state they are located in.
Even if it’s a fairly new business listing site, it’s already popular among users who look for health and medical services, home and garden businesses, hair and beauty services, auto services and pet related business listings in the US. The business page includes your local business contact information, physical address (the same as that on your website), hours of operation, business description, Google Map marker, reviews with star ratings and a Facebook Like button. You can add up to 20 images. Most importantly, your business page on Insider Pages allows you to provide a link back to your website.
FourSquare is not a regular business listing platform but a mobile application. To be precise, it’s the fastest growing small business mobile marketing platform. It provides businesses with free listings that connect to a widespread range of smartphone users who check-in to physical business locations. This application is not limited to US businesses alone but has an ever-growing community of 25 million users worldwide. Its free tools allow you to engage with your customers and fans. Claim your business on FourSquare and get started with a free account. The Merchant Dashboard on FourSquare allows you to keep tabs on daily check-ins via the app, recent visitors and many more things.
Over 70 million businesses in 38 countries are listed on HotFrog. It is a brand well-known among businesses and users around the world because of the many country-specific versions of HotFrog business listing sites available.
The site provides with reporting tools that helps track activity on business listings. To get more information about HotFrog profiles check out their section of how-tos.
Other local listing sites
If you want to add your business to more local listings, try these: YellowPages, WhitePages, Judysbook, Citysearch, Brownbook, Local.com, MojoPages, [Yellowee][41], Bizjournals.com, DiscoverOurTown, LocalSiteSubmit, UScity.net, Manta, ZipWeb
I didn’t realize that some of these local business listings existed! Thanks for sharing this and for letting new users know a little bit of history for each site!