Best tool for getting local businesses listed

It is better to submit your website in Local Business Center like google place, local yahoo, Yellowpages.com, etc...

HI Sherloc and thanks for the mention about LBL Robot.

WE have only been open since the beginning of March and members are already seeing results from the reviews our robot posts. You can find more information at Local Business Listing Robot

Keith

I completely agree that you should add your business to a handful of HYPERLOCAL and/or HYPERNICHE directories as I like to call them.

I'd start with your local tv station/newspaper websites first. These local community portals/directories should allow you to list your clients in the appropriate categories and what not. Hyperniche would be directories for your client's specific industry: something like "thebestplumbersdirectory.com", etc.

If you get really lucky you'll come across THE GOLDEN NUGGETS as I like to call them. These are the hyperlocal AND hyperniche business directory websites. something like "thebestcolumbusplumbers.com" etc. These work really well too.

I'm finding more and more of these GOODIES in my research for the Small Business Directories website that I've been working on the past month. I'm aiming to make it "THE Directory of Small Business Directories", so you can bookmark for later citation research if you'd like!

The real problem I feel that rbrShorty didn't note though, is that more than likely you are only going to be able to locate a handful of HYPERNICHE/HYPERLOCAL directories for your client's specific industry. Often, these "smaller/focused" directories might not carry a lot of "Google authority" either, though some certainly do in my opinion and experiences.

I cover all of the "big player" generic directories every time I start a campaign for my offline clients. This works well for reputation management and company branding purposes as well, as a lot of these generic online directories have a TON of authority and will show up all over the first few pages of Google for your client's name, and often your keywords if you're lucky and/or good with your local keyword research.

So, first I'd recommend finding a handful of hyperlocal and/or hyperniche websites for your client's business (your tv stations and newspapers should have at least one directory in your community), and submit their business listing information. Then, I'd ensure that their information is distributed to the major generic directories as well. (And yes I am aware that I have a link advertising local business submissions in my signature, but I certainly wouldn't be doing this process for my own offline clients if I felt it did not produce desirable results )

As far as outranking local competitors, I have been VERY successful doing so using these types of directory submissions (generic directories for the quantity/quality/authority, and hyperlocal/hyperniche directories for the quality/local and industry relevance) as a online marketing campaign launchpad of sorts.

The other thing is, in my opinion, Google Places has basically become kind of like "Yahoo Site Explorer" for examining citation sources. They usually only show SOME of the business directory listings they're pulling from at any given time, just like Yahoo Site Explorer will not give you the COMPLETE backlinks listing for websites. They are not an open book to say the least.

Google Places is pretty crazy in general though, I've had all sorts of things show up as citations...Facebook, articles in article directories, etc. Instead of posting your client's website URL in the article directory resource boxes, you can try putting the business citation ie "name address phone" in and submit to the top article directories. Basically, anywhere you can get a "mentioning" of your client's name, address, phone number on an authority website...you should do it. If you try and get a link to your client's website from a certain website because of its general authority etc, it would probably be equally beneficial to make sure you include the "Name Address Phone number" wherever possible.

My new motto for local search is: "If you can get a link on it, NAP it"

Sorry for the long response, but I've basically been "breathing" business directories for the past few months and it might be driving me insane.

- Jim

Hi mcconnon12, I was actually referring to using JUST text (business NAP info) as a citation in this specific scenario.

- Jim