5 Best Free Local Business Directories To Get More Customers and Website Traffic

A number of new clients have recently asked us whether it is beneficial to submit a website into as many online directories as possible. For some people directory submission is imperative. For instance, one time a prospective client was promised by someone that his website would be submitted to a 1000 different directories and needed […]

By Gentian Shero

Google is the top search engine and blends the results of local entries with regular search results most of the time. The local entries are presented at the top of the organic search results. They include a map of the business location, which makes it easy for customers to find you. Once they click on the listing they can go to the business profile to see more detailed info, and from there visit your website. Google local can give you more traffic than someone who has an AdWords paid listing on the top of the page.


2. Yahoo Local – The Yahoo directory has been functioning since 2004 and it has a high page rank as well. Yahoo Local is comprehensive in that it allows you to directly edit their local search result for your business but also uses a variety of local data providers not used by any other engine, such as WCities and DiscoverOurTown. Yahoo local offers a simple listing and an enhanced listing for a fee. The main advantage I see with Yahoo is the number of  Yahoo mail users, which is the biggest of all email free clients online. Yahoo listings are manually reviewed. When submitting a listing to Yahoo it can take from a couple of days up to a month to have your listing approved.

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3. Bing Places For Business – Previously known as Bing local, the Bing Business Portal has  just  moved beta mode to fully functional. Bing is very similar to Yahoo. Both services are owned by Microsoft and use the same data providers to show results. However the new service offers some cool features that other directories fall short on. For example, the new BBP offers a mobile listing, a QR code option, special deals option, and additional users option. The later can be used to allow somebody else to maintain and update the listing. The BBP is very important too, as many people use Internet Explorer as their default browser and of course the default search engine of IE is Bing. Plus that Bing is also the default search engine on Facebook.


4. Manta – This directory offers quite a lot and its user numbers and ranking are on the rise. You can list you business, including a photo, hours of operation, services etc. What I found interesting on this directory is the fact that they allow you to set up a personal profile that it can be connected to your business listing. Moreover, Manta allows Twitter or RSS feeds to be connected to the listing. These feeds operate in real-time and show Twitter updates that make the listing more recent, interesting, and adds a voice to it. To see what I mean, check out the Shero Designs listing by clicking here.


5. LinkedIn – The fact that this directory/professional network is so widely used, makes it another must have place for your business to be linked to. Having a company listing on LinkedIn can help finding leads, growing your business globally, or finding the right vendors. Similar to Manta, LinkedIn allows blog or Twitter account feed sharing. If your content is unique enough you can link to it from your profile page, or take it one step further by promoting featured blog content to LinkedIn members on the site. With LinkedIn you can create even targeted ads where the amount of info that is shown can be controlled. Last, I don’t know why but  LinkedIn is among the most credible directories that enjoys the highest ranking on Google.

These are the five most important free local directories that every business should be listed on. I am sure that we can add more to the list, such as SuperPages, Citysearch,  YellowPages etc., but they are somehow limited when it comes to  what information you can add and the amount of information shown. To take full advantage of what they offer you have to pay a monthly fee.

Creating a Local listing for your business and optimizing your website for local searches takes nothing away from your website’s overall optimization, and can result in a real improvement in traffic. The above five directories will allow you to enter a ton of details for your business and it is all at no cost.

Best,

Genti

 

 

 

Chief Strategy Officer at

Gentian, CSO and co-founder of Shero Commerce, guides the company and client digital strategies. He's an expert in technical SEO, Inbound Marketing, and eCommerce strategy.