It is foolish for any business not to obtain their free listings on at least the major sites offering local directories. Not having these listings is like having someone offer your business years of free advertising and saying “no thanks”.
This benefits Bloggers and Online Businesses too. You do need to provide a physical address and phone number to be listed in most directories.
Nielsen Consumer surveys clearly show the importance of having an Internet presence. Among the latest Nielsen statistics is this:
74% of people determine who they will do business with locally using online computerized search engines such as Google and Yahoo!
These directories offer many advantages to anyone wishing to get more visibility for their local or online business.
WHAT ARE LOCAL LISTINGS?
- Local Listings are similar to an ad in the printed Phone Book Yellow Pages
- They are only online and they contain far more information than even a full page print ad would have
HOW LOCAL LISTINGS BENEFIT THE PUBLIC
- Quickly and easily find businesses by name, type of business, services offered or specific products sold
- Instantly access additional information such as payment methods accepted, hours open, maps and directions, special offers and coupons
- Increase customer confidence when trying new businesses by providing reviews written by actual customers
- Save disappointment and money by avoiding unethical or unfriendly people, bad food or service, exorbitant prices, and other negative experiences
HOW LOCAL LISTINGS BENEFIT BUSINESSES
- Most Local Listings are free to submit, have no recurring fees, and stay online indefinitely
- The majority (74%) of Internet users find businesses and products using Local Listing sites
- Because Local Listing directories are high traffic, high profile sites the incoming links they provide will greatly benefit your search engine listing placement – even if your business is totally online and NOT local.
- They are a great way to get totally free advertising and grow your business
SHOULD YOU DO IT YOURSELF?
- Submitting your own listings is extremely time-consuming (30-100+ hours to do it well)
- The submission process can be very confusing and every site is different
- It is better to do it yourself than not be listed at all
- Letting us do it for you will give you better results because there is more going on in the computer databases than can be easily explained or understood – even by long time Internet users
Want to be listed? Gather this information on your business and use it to list yourself or send it to us.
Want more information? See our Local Search Listing Service process.
There are three ways to get your business listed:
- Spend no money by doing it yourself manually starting with the links in our Local Search Directories post.
- Save yourself 30-100+ hours of manually submitting your listing on each directory site by paying Universal Business Listing (UBL) $30 for 76+ Local Search Directory listings and do the keyword research and copywriting work yourself.
- Hire us to ensure comprehensive descriptions, thorough keyword research and optimized copywriting. We submit your listings using UBL and then upgrade them manually.
We recommend using UBL for these reasons:
- It takes so many hours to add your business to just the larger directories that few ever finish doing it manually.
- They can get your business listed faster than it would be listed if you submitted manually to each directory.
- It costs less to pay them $30 for all the listings they create than you could create them yourself manually because some of the directories charge more per listing than UBL charges for their entire service.
- They can get your business listed almost immediately in the infoUSA directory that feeds 85% of online directories (including Google Local Search, Yahoo! Yellow Pages, Microsoft Live Local Search (now Bing), AOL brands including Compuserve, Netscape and Mapquest, and 90% of in-car navigation systems. Getting listed in infoUSA usually takes 30-60 days.
While you could submit your own listings – and if that is the only choice you can afford then by all means do it – because any listing is better than no listing.
As a business owner, your time is better spent running your business instead of investing the thirty to 100+ hours required to learn and implement the process yourself.
To maximize your results, it is best to work with someone who understands how search engines work, knows how to do keyword research, and has advanced copywriting skills.
Why? I know someone is going to want to know what difference it makes who creates the listings. The short answer is what key words they select. Search engines and directories can only find the words included in your listing. Most businesses only use the most obvious words to describe what they do.
If you only mention 10% of what you offer, you will miss 90% of potential business opportunities, leads, and sales.
Let’s use just one company as an example. Since I know Good Millwork won’t mind I’ll use them. If they or most anyone else created their local search listing they might write that they are a Millwork company and that would be accurate.
There is nothing in the process at each Local Search Directory that explains that you need to include somewhere in each listing every word that someone searching for your business would use.
We want to weave words describing ALL of the services and products they offer into each listing so that they will show up not just for millwork but for as many searches as possible. For example:
- Exterior shutters is more important than just shutters because there are more searches for interior shutters (which they do not sell) than for exterior shutters which they do
- Architectural moldings can also be called door moldings or window trim or door and window mouldings
- Crown molding is an important type of molding for them so we definitely want it to be in every listing
- Wood siding might also be called exterior siding or house siding or wooden siding
- Chair rail is a unique type of molding that will be easier to rank for so we want to include it
- Genuine mahogany and mahogany moldings are kept in stock so they want to be sure they can be found for those searches
- Deadhead sinker cypress is a very rare wood valuable enough that it is often shipped great distances
- TimberSIL ecofriendly rot-proof, virtually fireproof treated wood is new and a great way to go green that they actively promote
- LEEDs credits are important to green building architects so we want to make sure we include them in our listings
- They offer a free molding search tool and free downloadable approved architectural 3D downloadable CAD Drawings
These are only a sampling. There are vastly more keywords to be researched for each business to capture their niche in the marketplace. It is highly unlikely that without guidance any business would think to include all these unusual words in their listings. It is equally unlikely that most Search Engine Marketing (SEM) firms would take the time to understand your business to the depth we will.
There is nothing in any Local Search Directory process that reminds you to include the names of the counties, towns, major geo metro closest to you, or significant landmarks or related locations in your listings. If you do include them your listing will show up for those searches. If you do not it will not.
We have vast experience and technical skills in keyword research and copywriting that greatly increase how much visibility your listings will receive. There is a huge demand for these skills and we are willing to assist others interested in learning this type of work.
To discuss how we can work together to grow your business see our Local Search Directory Services or our NEW Small Business Internet Marketing Starter Package.
NEW: Top 10 Local Search Directories by Importance ~ these are the ones to ensure you claim and upgrade.
