What Are Business Directories and How Can They Benefit Local SEO?

Is this the year you’re finally going to start taking local rankings seriously?

If you want to rank your site in the local search results, then you’re going to need a solid local SEO strategy. To successfully rank there are a lot of things you’ll need to get right. Getting your site placed across online business directories is one of those things.

Below we dive into the power of online business directories, and how to uncover business-related directories that are worth submitting your website too.

What are Online Directories?

Online directories are the Yellow Pages of the web. Essentially, they’re online business listings whose goal is to host as many relevant businesses and their information as possible.

There are both large scale directories that list every kind of business under the sun and more niche-focused directories that focus on specific types of businesses, or even local areas. You’re probably already familiar with a lot of the large business directories, like, Bing Places, Yelp, Citysearch, and Google My Business.

However, there are a ton of other smaller directories that will be valuable places to land a backlink from.

How Directories Influence Local SEO?

Online directories will give you a backlink to your website, which will help to improve your rankings in the local search engines. There are a ton of different ranking factors, but backlinks still do play a large role in how high you rank for specific keywords.

Backlinks act as votes from other sites. The more high-quality and relevant backlinks you have the more authoritative your site is in the eyes of Google. Which only means one thing, higher rankings.

In fact, Search Engine Journal states that claiming your Google My Business Page is one of the most important local ranking factors. So, do that first if you haven’t already.

Plus, most online directories are quite authoritative, so a backlink amor them will carry a lot of weight.

How to Find Directories to List Your Business

If you haven’t done any submissions to directories, then we recommend starting with Google My Business, Yelp, and Bing Places. Once you’ve completed these, then it’s time to move onto smaller business directories.

Vendasta has created a massive list of online business directories that you can work your way through. It may seem time consuming, but having local citations can end up giving your business the SEO boost you need to nudge out your local competition.

If you’re super dedicated any have already powered through the list below, then you can move onto local directories. These include things like your local chamber of commerce, and any other kinds of business organizations in your area. This might take some research, but as a benefit, you may be able to receive some qualified leads from these local sources as well.

Keep in mind that when you’re submitting to directories you’ll want your business name, location, and phone number to be consistent. So, if you have any old submission that don’t list your most recent business information, then you’ll want to update these.

If you’re looking to create a local seo strategy that gets you the rankings that’ll help your business grow, then reach out to our team today.

Image via Luis Llerena