Posts Tagged ‘Yelp’

Before the web, the vast majority of consumers found local business by opening up the yellow pages and searching by category. This made it easy for businesses to ensure that they could be found. Buy a yellow pages listing and your job was pretty much done. While consumers are increasingly looking for businesses online, there is no comparable authoritative source for local business information on the web. Consumers look to a variety of channels to find businesses, which makes the job of getting found a bit more difficult. I have compiled a list of what I view as the 10 most important sites on which to list (for US businesses), with the important qualification that doing so is free in all cases. I looked at a variety of factors, including overall traffic, domain authority, share of local search and depth of listing content in compiling the list.

All of these sites also have paid advertising options, but first you should take advantage of what they have to offer for free. Note that in most cases, you will need to be able to verify a phone number and/or a physical address to add your listing. I have included traffic figures for each site, using Compete.com January data. I have also noted cases where web site links are nofollowed, with an explanation of what that means at the bottom of this post.

1. Google Local Business Center

By adding your business to the Google Local Business Center, you show up on Google Maps. As I’ve mentioned before, this is one of the most important things a local business can do to get found on the web. Here are a few reasons why:

• It is the most popular mapping service on the web, period.
• Google Maps results show up first on Google.com for many local searches.
• Google Maps is the default local search app on the iPhone (for now) and of course Google’s Android phone.

Google Maps is currently at 182 million visits per month. To add your listing: Google Local Business Center
My post describing adding a Google business listing

2. Facebook Fan Page

Apart from being the second most visited site on the internet behind Google, 1.5 million businesses have created fan pages on the network, and 20 million people become fans of pages every day (source). Facebook is a long way from being where consumers search for businesses, but it has quickly become the most likely place for consumers to connect with local businesses online. According to Compete, Facebook received almost 3 billion visits in January, but little of this constitutes local business search traffic. Web site links nofollowed. To create a page you must be logged in to your personal account, then go here: www.facebook.com/pages/create.php
My post describing adding a Facebook Fan Page

3. Yelp

The review site Yelp is now the most trafficked site focused on local business search. Given its emphasis on social content and interaction, Yelp tends to do better than other directory sites when it comes to attracting younger, more social users. Currently at 50 million visits per month. To add your listing: Yelp signup page

4. Citysearch

Citysearch.com has been holding steady for a number of years now in terms of on-site traffic, but they have been growing their network of distribution through syndication and the recently announced CityGrid blows their distribution opportunity wide-open. Currently at 34 million visits per month. Web site links nofollowed. To add your listing: add business – note that you must be logged in to a personal Citysearch account to see this page.

5. Yellowpages.com/YP.com

AT&T owned Yellowpages.com rebranded as YP.com, and it’s not your parents yellow pages any more. Under pressure from the likes of Google and Yelp, YP.com has a fresh look and more social content and features. And they are beta testing a new social-local search site called Buzz.com. They also distribute listings to a number of syndication partners. Currently at 28 million visits per month. Web site links nofollowed. Claim your listing.

6. Bing Local

Microsoft has long struggled behind Google and Yahoo! in the world of web search, but the tides have turned of late. Since Microsoft launched Bing.com last year, they have steadily been gaining search share. And recent regulatory approval in Europe clears the way for a long planned partnership between Microsoft and Yahoo. As a result of this partnership, Bing will replace Yahoo’s own search engine on Yahoo properties. Bing currently accounts for a relatively small portion of local search, but expect that portion to grow. To add your listing: Local Listing Center

7. Yahoo! Local

As with many things Yahoo!, Yahoo! Local is on the way down. But they still provide a very popular service, so worth making sure you are listed there. Currently at 12 million visits per month. Web site links nofollowed. To add your listing: Yahoo! Local add a business page

8. LinkedIn

LinkedIn isn’t exactly a place where people go to look for local businesses, but it does offer rich business listing functionality, and the domain carries quite a bit of authority. LinkedIn has also been adding many useful features for businesses, such as the ability to announce promotions, share articles and blogs, and list open jobs. Currently at 63 million visits per month, but very little of this is local search traffic. Web site links nofollowed. Add a company.

9. Superpages.com

Superpages also went through a significant redesign recently, but doesn’t seem to be keeping up with Yellowpages.com or the others. Their traffic figures indicate same, with a fairly consistent downward trend. Nonetheless, they get 9 million local search visits a month, so deserve to be on this list. Web site links nofollowed.  Get your free listing now.

10. Local.com

Local.com is another directory site, less well-known, but with a great domain name and considerable traffic. Local.com has an extensive syndication network, but is primarily focused on promoting paid listings. Currently at 14 million visits per month. Add your listing.

There are many benefits to getting your business listed on other web sites. Four important ones are:

• Links – links pointing to a web site are major factor in how that site ranks in search engines. I would say the most important factor, but linking is a complex and nuanced topic. Links are not all created equal. Where a link comes from is important. For example, a link from the home pages of nytimes.com is worth a lot more than a link on a page buried deep within a blog like this one. And some web sites put a “nofollow” attribute on links. This attribute is a way of telling search engines not to follow nor associate value with a link. However, there is still some SEO value in a nofollowed link, in particular because user behavior is also a factor in Google ranking. And Matt Cutts of Google explains more about the value of nofollowed links here.
• Web site traffic – this one is kind of obvious, but your listing will include a link to your web site, which will result in more traffic. Many consumers like to visit a web site before visiting a business. If yours isn’t listed, you lose out.
• In-store traffic – as mentioned at the beginning of this post, consumers are using the internet more, and print yellow pages less.  According to one study, print now accounts for less than a third of local business search. Listing your business on the web is now the best way to get people to walk in to or call your business.
• Placerank – PlaceRank is a measure Google uses to understand location-based relevancy. It is not very well understood, but as location is increasingly becoming an integral part of search, expect optimizing for PlaceRank to become an important part of local business SEO. The short version is that businesses that are strongly associated with well-ranked places will benefit. SEO expert Ash Nallawalla has an excellent post explaining PlaceRank in detail.

Now that I have compiled this list, I am going to go through the process of adding a business to each of these sites. Look for posts in the coming weeks as I describe that experience.