What is an online business directory listing? An online business directory listing for a local small business today is what a Yellow Pages business listing was for a local small business many years ago. It can be the difference between being found by local consumers or not.
Online Directories vs. Phone Book
A business directory listing is just that, a listing of your business in an online directory. Before the advent of the Internet, the only directory local consumers had access to that categorized and indexed local businesses selling the products and services they were looking for was the local Yellow Pages phone directory. Today the Internet provides access to literally thousands of categorized and indexed business directories providing consumers access to businesses selling every conceivable product and service. These online business directories include everything from databases within the three major search engines; Google, Yahoo and Bing to local search platforms like CitySearch and MerchantCircle.
There are several big differences between listing your business online today and the old traditional phone book listing. The standard online business listing today contains much more information than just your business name, address, phone number (NAP). Listings can include a brief descriptions of your business, an interactive map, hours of operation, a picture, be listed under multiple categories and have specific keywords attached to it.
Where Should I List My Business?
So in what directories should you be listing your business? Answer: as many as possible. Fortunately there are services that will take your business listing, enhance it, optimize it, attach specific keywords to it and distribute it for you to all the major search engines and hundreds of local search platforms. This type of service saves time and more importantly, ensures your business listing is accurate and distributed without errors to hundreds of directories simultaneously. This is a very important for search engine optimization. Search engines use business directories to validate and verify information they display on search results pages, if the Name, Address or Phone number of your business listing is different in any way within any directory online the search engines will see it as a different business, hurting your ranking on search results pages.
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If you have read this article you may also want to read one or more of the articles below. Using good local online marketing techniques today is essential to helping you get found online, attract new customers, grow your business and make more money.
