Getting Links for Your Local Business — Not from a Search Engine
Search engine traffic is one of the best forms of non-referral traffic on the internet. But it’s not the only form of traffic for your local business.
As powerful as search engines are, local consumers still get their information from non-search sources. Many online consumers go to the online equivalent to the Yellow Pages – often called the Internet Yellow Pages, or IYP. Last month, there were almost 20,000,000 unique visitors at YellowPages.com.
IYP sites get traffic for the same reasons that the last generation went to the offline equivalent: to find local business contact and location information. That’s why you should submit your local business to as many free listing sites as possible.
Local SEO For Your Brick and Mortar Business
This tactic is sometimes called “Local SEO”.
The reason to perform Local SEO is two-fold. For one, you want to be in front of customers wherever they’re looking for your products and services. By putting your local business information in these 2nd tier sites, you are increasing your exposure on the internet. Every little bit helps.
Second, you want as many sites providing accurate information about your local business as possible. This helps with your organic listings in the search engines as well. The more places you have your business information, the more the search engines will use it. Your goal is have accurate information about your company appear in as many places as possible.
How To Get More Local Listings
Just like the search engines, you’ll need to fill out your local business listing on each site. We know it’s tedious, but it’s important you take the time to do it. Not only does it put you in each site’s index, but it helps your search engine rankings as well. The major search engines use these sites as citations to build local results.
At this time, these are the most important places to submit your local business:
2) InfoUSA
3) InsiderPages
4) Localeze
5) SuperMedia
6) Wcities
7) Yellow Pages
8) Yelp
Note: There are paid advertising options for these sites, but there’s no need to pull out your credit card for any of the free listings.
(Update: 3/30/10) To submit even more listings, check out this page.