Local business directories have the greatest impact on businesses who serve their local or regional area, such as restaurants, florists, auto shops, plumbers, and so forth. However, they can also be a great source for link juice and brand mentioning, which helps with organic search engine ranking as well.
Submitting to the dozens of destinations in the list you'll find below can take days for someone unfamiliar with each destinations ranking criteria. Video networks, including YouTube.com are helping businesses get visibility in what ComScore has called the 2nd largest search engine of 2009. Most of Business Directories (not to be confused with Web Directories) also allow for video and extended business information, which means now you have three steps to think about:
- Creating a useful video with business data and call-to-action
- Submitting your business data and video to all the major business directories
- Submitting your video to all the major video sharing websites (i.e.: YouTube)
Everyone knows I'm a huge fan of Local Splash, a local search engine optimization company in Fountain Valley. They do a great job when it comes to understanding local search changes and responding to insure customers rank well in search engine maps. However, I recently discovered a service that compliments the technology with
manual submissions to nearly 100 local business destinations.
I was skeptical at first because there are thousands of alleged SEO companies ripping off local businesses. Then I sat down with Todd Bryson of Local Site Submit to fully understand what the deliverables involved with his service. Unlike the typical "your submission is complete" report, Todd's company actually delivers:
- A spreadsheet with ever destination submitted to
- Usernames and passwords for each destination
- Maxed out profile data to provide as much as possible to the destination
- A 30 second video created with imagery and business data
- Video distribution to dozens of video sharing websites (including YouTube.com)
- The username and password to a Gmail account with all the verification emails
It's definitely a time-saver and there's no recurring fee, so I'd highly recommend giving this submission program a shot instead of wasting days on end trying to do it yourself.
List of Local Business Directories
I get asked for this everyday, so here's my list of the most popular
Local Business Directories you can submit your business to:
- citysearch.com
- merchantcircle.com
- yellowpages.lycos.com
- directorym.com
- bbb.org
- switchboard.com
- iaf.net
- local.yahoo.com
- maps.google.com
- yellowpages.aol.com
- yelp.com
- whitepages.com
- yellowpages.com
- wikimapia.org
- superpages.com
- business.com
- insiderpages.com
- hoovers.com
- yellowbook.com
- tradekey.com
- zagat.com
- local.ingenio.com
- mobile.yahoo.com
- local.com
- manta.com
- zoominfo.com
- dexknows.com
- local.botw.org
- hotfrog.com
- ezilon.com
- yellowbot.com
- getfave.com
- find.hamptonroads.com
- cityvoter.com
- outside.in
- genieknows.com
- ratepoint.com
- discoverourtown.com
- infousa.com
- uscity.net
- marchex.com
- mojopages.com
- matchpoint.com
- wcities.com
- openlist.com
- accoona.com
- boulevards.com
- welcomewagon.com
- corporate.local.com
- bizjournals.com
- directory.classifieds1000.com
- magicyellow.com
- pr.com
- kudzu.com
- justclicklocal.com
- brownbook.net
- citysquares.com
- judysbook.com
- pennysaverusa.com
- twibs.com
- sitejabber.com
- b2byellowpages.com
- yellowpagecity.com
- localmatters.com
- cityguide.com
- soprano.com
- localdatabase.com
- ecovian.com
- eztousebigbook.com
- rateitall.com
- localadlink.com
- infignos.com
- myhuckleberry.com
- americasbestcompanies.com
- city.com
- thinklocal.com
- smalltown.com
- locallife.com
- planetbuzz.com
- citycliq.com
- bluestarhighway.com
- neighborsville.com
- cityslick.net
- yellowassistance.com
- usyellowpages.com
- listd.com
- bing.com
- corporate.localpages.com
- propeller.adsonar.com
- showmelocal.com
- bing.com/local
- brownbook.com
- businessdirectory.bizjournals.com
Still want to submit manually? Make sure you have the exact business data that the major data sources have for your business before you do (you'll thank me later).
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