Omikron Media

12 Essential Geo-Targeted Business Directories

Business directories can be a powerful tool that can gain you more exposure online. Many provide free links and a great platform to present your business to potential customers. After all, making your business easy to find is half the battle of a good SEO campaign.

Keep in mind that the majority, if not all, of these directories will “nofollow” your links. You won’t be gaining any quality back links here, but you will be improving your geo-targeted search results; not to mention appearing to millions of potential customers every day.

If you’re not familiar with geo-targeting, it is the practice of targeting your search results and business listings to a local or regional marketplace rather than a worldwide or national marketplace. Many companies receive a large amount of traffic and business from geo-targeted results. In many places, geo-targeting will still be attracting millions of potential visitors and is a very powerful form of search engine optimization and online marketing.

Here are some great geo-targeting business directories to list to:

Google Local Business Center

Google Local Business Center, or more commonly known as Google Maps, is probably one of the best places to list your business online.

A free listing here notifies Google and its millions of users that you exist. Your listings can include pictures, movies, links, descriptions (it’s pretty much a mini website).

Your listing can appear in local search results for relevant keywords, Google Maps, and Google Maps applications (Iphone, etc.).
If you haven’t already listed your business here, what are you waiting for?

Be aware that phone verification is required.

Yahoo Local and Yahoo Directory

Listing with Yahoo Local is similar to Google Local except the level of exposure is not as great. Their search results do not include business listings in relevant areas like Google Maps, and I know of hardly any platforms that use Yahoo’s Local directory in their search results.

If you want to improve your traffic with Yahoo you should consider listing to the Yahoo Directory. It’s expensive ($299 per year) but can provide dozens of great quality back links and will increase your traffic in Yahoo’s search results.

Yahoo used to include directory results within their organic searches, but I don’t see this being applied anymore. However, listing to their directory will increase your traffic with them and possibly give you a good bump in PR.

Bing Local Business Center

Bing, like Yahoo, does not include its local business listings in search results, and really has no other platforms that carry their business listings either.

Listing your business with Bing is beneficial because it’s growing in popularity and its persistent battle against Google, will probably end up in a lot of similar features; including map results in geo-targeted searches.

The one really bad thing about listing your business to Bing is the extremely long verification process. They only allow verification by snail mail. That’s right, you’ll need to wait 6 weeks (they claim 3; it was 6) to get a letter in the mail with a PIN verification. From there, you’re listing is still under review for another week or two until they decide to approve it. It’s an extremely annoying process.

Yelp

Yelp receives an estimated 6.6 million visitors a month (data by Quantcast). Although all businesses can benefit from a listing here, I find that the most frequently searched businesses through Yelp are retail or restaurants.

Yelp also has a very popular iPhone Application that contains all the same information as its online service, including map locations.

Local.com

Local.com is a great resource to gain exposure for your business. I have clients that receive dozens of customers a month through their local.com premium listing ($49.95 a month).

Local.com receives an estimated 4.2 million visitors a month (data by Quantcast) and has a very loyal user base. It is a great place to list your business online; either free or paid. Any type of business has a good chance to gain exposure here. Premium listings aren’t required, but they will certainly drive more traffic your way.

Superpages.com

Superpages.com is another high traffic business directory that offers both free and paid listings. I don’t see much traffic or phone calls as a result of a free listing, but you can gain a link to your website and blog through their free submission service.

iBegin.com

iBegin is a business directory for the US and Canada. Listings are free and provide photos, links, and descriptions for your business.

Be aware phone verification is required.

Yellowpages.com

Yellowpages.com is large business directory that accepts both free and paid listings. The only problem with the free listing is that they will constantly call you in hopes of upgrading your listing. I used to get about 4 calls a month asking me to upgrade my listing, I eventually had to tell them to stop calling.

You won’t see much of an increase in traffic or phone calls from a free listing but premium listings do receive a decent amount of traffic and they do a good job of promoting your business through their service.

Localeze

Localeze offers an interesting service. They claim that listing with them will improve your local search results. It’s an interesting concept that could benefit a geo-targeted business (which the majority online are). Their listings are free but I believe they offer some premium services as well.

Insiderpages

Insiderpages is another large geo-targeted business directory. They emphasize reviews for local businesses so retail and restaurant listings will benefit more than others.

Openlist

Open list is another large online business directory but they only allow businesses that meet their category criteria (mostly retail, automotive, and physicians). If you can list your site here, do it.

City Search

City Search is a good geo-targeted business directory for retail, bars and clubs, hotels, and other specialized business listings. Most businesses will not be able to list here, but if you’re in their desired category, make sure you submit a listing.

If you have any additional business directories you would like to mention, please leave them in the comments below.