Maybe you think that having your business on the web (solely or mostly) transcends the local business world, but that’s not the case at all. Even if you’re online only, there’s no reason not to list your business on local business listings. You never know who could be wanting your exact service – they might be only a few blocks away. It’s easy and free to sign up with most local business listings and it doesn’t take more than 10 or 15 minutes. Three you should consider signing up for are Yelp, Yahoo! Local, and Bing Local.

Yelp has not only listings for local businesses but also reviews. You may have to prime the pump a little at first by getting a friend or two to write positive reviews of your business, and you will have much more credibility if you also rate local businesses. But as the positive reviews add up, your business’s local profile can be raised significantly.

With Yahoo! Local, you have to be a local business, and there are both basic and enhanced listings. The enhanced listings cost $9.95 per month and get you a much more detailed listing.

Signing up for Bing Local is easy and quick, and Bing’s local search refinements are known to be good, so you definitely don’t want to miss out on signing up on Bing Local.

Considering how easy and quick it is to become part of these local business directories, there’s no reason for you not to sign up.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 3rd, 2010 at 5:57 am and is filed under Business Tactics, Localised SEO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.