Sign Up for Local Business Directories

There are a wide variety of local business directories that offer SMBs the opportunity to list their companies for free. Of course, the “800 pound Gorilla” is Google Local, but Yahoo!, Yellow Pages and YellowBook are nothing to sneeze at either. Businesses should be prepared to provide a complete profile, hours of operation, a photo, etc… Here are a few links to get started:

• Google Local
• Yahoo Local
• YellowPages.com
• YellowBook

Geotag Content

Businesses should make every attempt to occupy as much of the first page for their business location as possible. This is particularly helpful for B2C businesses, but it can also be helpful to B2Bs too. Briefly, Geotagging Geotagging is the inclusion of geographic information when posting content. This can include the town, a street address or even longitude or latitude information on sites like Flickr, YouTube and Google Maps .

These are just two examples of how businesses can help themselves by spending a modest amount of additional efforts in their online marketing efforts to dramatically improve their online visibility.

We’ll offer more tips in the near future. In the meantime, can you offer any of your favorites?

Bill Rowland

From a Marketing Perspective

1. Local businesses who target local markets can now be exposed for broad queries.  Any SEM plan done for small businesses needs to incorporate local business inclusion through Google’s Local Business Center. www.google.com/local/add   I’ll discuss more details on this in a later post.
2. Google local business algorithms change frequently, but to increase chances of being in the top 10 of the local business listings, follow the following rules of thumb within the Local Business center:A) Make sure listings are complete and comprehensive.
   B) Make sure all relevant terms are listed.
   C) Ask customers to write positive reviews, and use relevant keywords in their reviews.
   D) Upload photos of a storefront, products, even happy customers.
   E) Register your site within local directories (SEO factor) such as online yellow pages, and specific category directories like Yelp.com.
3. In the past, users would get frustrated by generic 1-2 word searches due to result relevancy.  With local results showing for generic terms now, this should influence people’s search behavior over time.
4. For Adwords advertisers who are affected by local business results, we are now recommending some generic broad match terms.  The importance of long-tail specific keywords will always be a priority, but if I sold lawn mowers, and I wasn’t in the top ranking of the local business results as above, I would consider bidding on the term “lawn mowers” so that my message would be shown alongside the local listings.

In  summary, for those looking for local businesses, this allows a real benefit for users who can now bypass national companies or directories in the organic search results and instead go right to local companies through the local business listings or through an accompanying sponsored link text ad.

Paul Mosenson

Have you ever searched for a local product or service online? If you were located in Springfield, PA and were trying to find a moving company this is what you might see:

You may notice that 10 listings appear at the top of the search engine results page for the search “springfield, pa mover” – above the listings that everyone works very hard to achieve!

Of course formatting your local business listing may be a bit more involved than simply signing up for an account, but a properly completed business profile can not only offer a valuable SEO benefit, but also drive prospects to your door.

What has your experience been with local business directories? Please share your experiences with us here.

Thanks,

Bill

I’ve been delving a little deeper into the local search arena over the past couple of weeks for several clients and have so far found very little to be impressed with. Maybe I’ve been spoiled by Google with their ease-of-use, their slick interface, their effectiveness. Personally, I continue to use Google for my local searches. I still find that I get much better results typing in the city name and then my keywords, my options include local, paid and organic listings (I like organic, the company is proving that they can walk the walk).

Let’s do a quick test. I go to Google, type in “Philadelphia Search Marketing”. I get a page that includes:

Local results

 Paid results

Organic Results

It’s easy. I can tell that it has a high level of relevance (I see some familiar names in there including ours) and away I go checking them all out.

Let’s have a look at SuperPages, now an Idearc Media division. With some powerful partnerships and affiliations, one would expect a decent system. I do like a good design but I’m more interested in performance…and especially usability. So I’m willing to overlook a bland appearance and even a simple typo like “Regiser a Domain Name” (as long as they don’t get the domain name wrong.)

Typing in “Search Marketing” then “Philadelphia” brings you to another screen with related categories which I must say is pretty annoying (below)

So then I click on “Internet Marketing Services” and get 2 sponsored results and some advertisers and that is it! So I wasted my time. (admittedly, there are more results for traditional businesses).

I go to YellowPages.com. A big brand also with some big backing. I like the design but again, not overly concerned with that aspect. I type in “search marketing” then “Philadelphia” and am taken straight to the results (there’s only 1 there) but I liked the ease of process (I used a pretty poor example I’m afraid, maybe dentists would’ve been better) but it at least offers some insight.

So I’m a little dirty at SuperPages.com, not only from a user perspective but as an advertiser. Managing the system is clunky, often painful, I keep getting errors (I couldn’t log in this morning which was the main cause of this rant) and admit to be pretty disappointed.

I think the graph below may also be an indicator of the comparisons. Either YellowPages.com is doing something right, or SuperPages.com is doing something wrong. I’ll continue to use Google and wait till the others get their act together or maybe a smaller player like Yelp.com will come to the fore.

Paul Fleming is co-founder and VP of Interactive Services for Dinkum Interactive. A trained teacher, Paul has worked in a variety of forms of Internet Marketing but with a focus on SEO. Originally from Australia, he now resides in Philadelphia with his wife and 2 ankle-biters.