[2024] Best Online Business Directories For Local Marketing & SEO

Whatever kind of local business you have this post can help you reach more customers. By leveraging online directories, you’ll be able to put your business in front of more customers, improve your Google Business Profile local pack rankings and get more traffic and leads.

Engagement and reviews on these platforms can build trust and loyalty with consumers, as well as increasing organic traffic. Perhaps the best part is how easy and affordable it can be to establish a great presence on online business directories and dominate your field. 

To help you choose the best directories for your business, we’ve included the following data so you can quickly compare each site before submitting your business listing:

• Traffic: This will tell you the monthly organic traffic to the entire domain. We collect this data via URL Profiler using the SEMRush API
• Domain Authority: Gives a general indication of the websites ability to rank in Google. This Moz metric has become an industry standard when evaluating the authority of a website. The higher the score the better.
• Spam Score: Gives a general indication of the trustworthiness of a website. The lower the score the better. We collect Moz Spam Score data using URL Profiler and Mozscape API.

With this data you’ll be armed to find the top directories and drill into niche specific places to list your business online.

How To Approach Listing Your Business

It can be overwhelming to consider all of the listings available to you, but neglecting listings entirely is a blown opportunity. After all, there are thousands overall and hundreds for any individual niche. 

To get started, I recommend covering the best free listings, advertising sites, a few top paid listings, and a couple of the best ones in your niche. If after some time gathering data, you find that your competitor is still outranking you and you aren’t happy with your increased business, you can submit for more listings. 

This way, you’ll be able to keep up on managing the listings you submitted to and not overwhelm yourself too quickly. It’s best to remain resourceful and scale listings as you go along. 

Criteria to Qualify for a Local Business Listing

• A business name or a “Doing Business As” (DBA)
• A dedicated address. This cannot be a shared address, the PO box, or a virtual office. It must be a physical address
• A phone number for your location. Call tracking numbers, shared phone numbers, and toll-free numbers are not sufficient.
• Face to face contact. Business can’t be conducted virtually and shouldn’t be an online store. There must be a storefront where you can make face-to-face contact with your customers. 

The best long term approach to business exposure is to build up your social media presence and utilize PR for links and exposure.

Best Places To Submit Your Local Business

More and more businesses operate entirely online. It should come as no surprise that there are great business listing sites if you have no brick-and-mortar location. There are hundreds of online business directories, but these are the best online directories for business owners. Most of these directories have free and paid options. 

Google Business Profile

This is Google’s tool to help you control your entire Google online presence. This includes both search and maps. This is perhaps the most important directory for you to list since it is one of the largest online local directories. It isn’t hard for most people to decide to list on Google, especially since it is free.

Facebook

As it is arguably the most popular social media platform online, it should come as no surprise that Facebook is a great online directory for any business. This is also a great place to allow you to engage with consumers and let your customers follow you and advertise your brand. It’s very easy to create a profile for your business and provide an entirely new marketing outlet as well as the listing.

Instagram

Instagram has rapidly grown to rival Facebook as a social media platform well worth listing your business on. In fact, brand loyalty Instagram develops may make it an even more important platform for your business. By using hashtags, you can appear in searches for niche categories, which can make it easy to find the customers who need you.

Yelp

Users publish reviews about local businesses on Yelp, so if you want to be able to collect positive reviews on this objective third-party platform, you want to have a listing there. Many people search for local businesses on Yelp. 

If your business is not there or doesn’t have any positive reviews, they are unlikely to choose your business. Yelp has significant traffic, with 35 million monthly users just on their mobile app as of 2020. Be sure to manage your listing once you put it up so that unfair reviews don’t go unanswered.

Yahoo!

This search engine isn’t as popular as it used to be, having largely lost out to Google, but it is still worth considering listing your business here. It offers a hierarchy of websites in the directory, which may mean that your business ends up being higher on Yahoo searches. To decide whether it is worth listing on Yahoo, check out Yahoo search results for keywords related to your company.

Twitter

This brief text and image-based social media platform is a great place to advertise, connect to customers, and communicate ongoing information about your business. If you want to advertise a sale or raffle off products, Twitter’s a great place to go. 

LinkedIn

This professional social network is a great place to find new employees, but it can also be a good place for your sales team to find leads. Because you can link to anyone you know professionally, you can reach large groups of people quickly and easily.

MapQuest

MapQuest is rapidly losing out to Google Maps as the primary map-based search engine, but it still has a worthwhile reach. There is no reason not to list your business on this easy, free, map based site. You may not even know how many potential consumers are using it.

Yellow Pages 

When consumers are looking for local businesses, many of them still turn to the old fashioned phone book, even if it is now online. If you don’t have your business listed here, you’re missing out. If you’re willing to pay, you can choose the Premium or Pro Plan to get identity verification on your consumers.

Better Business Bureau (BBB)

This is a trusted resource for businesses, charities, and brands. Because they are highly reliable, having a positive listing with them with a good rating will go a long way towards earning the trust of consumers who look you up on this platform. 

It may take some time to be accredited, but for many businesses, it is well worth the effort. The BBB is among the top 1000 websites in the US, and having your business listed there can help establish trust. 

Angie’s List

Members of Angie’s list grade companies on a report card using a number of parameters. Other members use that information to decide whether to use a local business or not. If your business is covered by one of the major categories on Angie’s list, it is well worth putting your business on the platform. 

Yell

Yell is an online business directory. You can search for companies matching the type of business you need, or find the right business near you by searching for a company name. Yell can help you find the most relevant businesses near you.

Thumbtack

Whatever kind of local professional service you have, Thumbtack can help your customers to find you. They ask consumers questions to help them find exactly the qualified professionals in their area who will meet their needs best. You want your business to be available to come up in those search results. 

City-data

This site offers all kinds of information on various US cities. It is often one of the first places that people go to when researching an area that they want to visit. Since this is where tourists or people who have just moved to an area may look for information, having your business listed here makes it much more likely that they will end up trying your business while they are in the area.

Foursquare

Foursquare is a fun local search app that lets users find new places by discovering where their friends are. This can be a great way to attract lots of new customers to a trendy new business. 

There are even points and prizes for checking in at certain places, so look into how you can incentivize visits to your business. With 93% of local stores already on Foursquare, you don’t want to miss out.

In fact, you probably have a listing on Foursquare already, so claim it to see what customers are saying and join their conversation. 

Manta

This online business directory also serves as a search engine. It can help your business to grow in a community as well as partnering with other companies. It is an excellent choice for any small business as it generates a fair amount of volume for your company.

Superpages

Superpages is a great local business directory to strengthen your online citations. We’ve used Superpages since 2008 and they are now part of the same company as YellowPages. Superpages are popular with restaurant business owners and lawyers.

Local

This is a fairly popular listing site for local services as well as events and activities. It has listings throughout the US and is a popular go-to for tourists in an area, so it’s well-worth listing your business, especially if you are connected with any events or activities. 

Bing Places

Microsoft owns Bing, and although it isn’t nearly as big and Google (it only accounts for 5.53% of traffic, next to Google’s 87.35%), it is still a significant search engine worth listing on. You may be able to stand out in this area where not as many businesses bother to list.

Dex Knows

Dex has fallen off in popularity over the past few years. But they still get a fair amount of traffic. Just be ready for a sales pitch once you submit. They have a pretty aggressive sales team. They are owned by a company called Thryv  (which owns Superpages and Yellowpages). 

B2B Yellow Pages

This local directory has a surprising amount of traffic. You won’t be able to get a dofollow link, but it’s worth it considering their traffic. 

Chamber of Commerce

While this isn’t the official US Chamber of Commerce, this website still has some clout. Plus, if you get the paid listing you will get a dofollow link which can give you a slight SEO boost. It won’t change your world, but could be a nice addition to your online PR.

Hotfrog

This is a local listing site that is active worldwide. This makes it among the best directories to list your business if you would like to attract more international customers and travelers. It also allows for promotional content, which most directories don’t, making it even more advantageous for your local business. 

eLocal

eLocal traces it’s roots back to 2007, so I wouldnt exactly call them fast growing – but they are worth checking out if you are in the services, legal, medial or financial services.

Merchant Circle

Merchant Circle was once one of our go-to directories. Over the years, they have lost a ton of traffic to some of the sites higher up on this list.  Their social media accounts are pretty inactive, but they are worth mentioning on this list because of their past popularity and you can still submit your business there.

The Value of Web Directories

When search engines were young, web directories were a simple, straightforward, and easy way to rank for any business or service. As algorithms have increased in complexity, such listings are no longer a rocket speed line to the top.  

Google still values external links like those provided by directories, but it may not value them as highly as some other links. A very relevant contextual link from an authority site has more value with Google than a web directory site. 

Still, business listing sites have value for ranking factors, particularly for local small businesses. The fall of directories has been a reality check for many SEOs, but it doesn’t mean that directories aren’t still a tested and practical technique for building an organic business and increasing SEO.

To take advantage of the value of these web directories, you’ll need to find ones that customers view as reputable. You also want to find a business directory that your target audience is probably going to utilize. Below this list of general directories, you’ll find a list of niche directories you can submit to.

General Directories

Accounting

There are a lot of accountants, which means lots of competition. Getting your business into a business directory that organizes listings to cater to particular potential customers is a great way to make sure you get noticed in your niche. 

Attorneys

Getting started as an attorney can be very hard, and it’s not a piece of cake to keep attracting new clients as the years go by either. Listing on well-respected platforms and collecting positive reviews while responding to negative ones can go a long way to establish your credibility as an attorney in your area.

Online reviews are especially important for younger clients. A whopping 81% of millennials would prefer to hire lawyers who have reviews. 

Auto Dealerships

When people are looking for a new car, one of the first things they do is check online directories for the make and model that they’re looking for or dealerships in their area. If you are not listed in the directory that people go to for new vehicles or to sell their vehicle, you’re missing out. 

Auto Repair

Few businesses suffer as much distrust as mechanics. For this reason, making sure your reviews are responded to on each and every directory listing is absolutely essential. If your records in local business directories are stellar, you’re much more likely to win out for new business. 

Beauty Services

Even if your beauty services are doing well locally, you can do so much more to bring in new business when travelers or tourists come to town. A great spa treatment is just what many people want after a long trip. Make sure that your business is in local business directories as well as marketing directories for tourists. 

Building and Home Contractors

If you’re a home contractor or remodeler, getting listed in these contractor directories is a must. Homeowners turned to these directories as a resource for their next home remodeling project. These sites contain information such as helpful tips and provide an idea of how much it would cost. Additionally, it features remodeling companies who are amongst the best in their area.

Chiropractors

It can be challenging to make it in this niche medical industry, where competition comes from everything from prescription drugs to acupuncture. Great reviews in directories help you to stand out from the crowd. 

Cleaning Companies

It takes a lot of trust for a client to let you into their home, so you need excellent reviews on every relevant directory listing in order to compete. Great reviews are free business marketing, which can be important for a small or single-person cleaning company. 

Counseling & Therapy

People are in a delicate position when they search for therapy or counseling. They don’t want to wade through a lot of options and advertising. Keep your listing straightforward and manage reviews well and you’ll be sure to bring in more business this way. 

Dentist 

People usually hate going to the dentist, so you have a job to do providing information to make your potential customers feel safe and comfortable coming to you. Great reviews in relevant directory listings can do a lot to help customers find you and set their mind at ease about using your services.  Directories are just one way to market your dental office.

Doctors

General practitioners and specialists alike may struggle to fill their waiting rooms, especially early in their careers. A good presence and great reviews in local business directories can help you to win the trust of patients and improve marketing. 

HVAC & Electricians

Most customers only need HVAC or Electrician products and services a few times in their lives, so good local SEO and directory listings is even more essential for these industries. You can set yourself apart locally with great reviews. A strong local directory review can do a lot to bring potential customers in.  Make sure you check out the building and home contracting list as well.

Insurance 

Insurance can be a challenging industry to market, largely because people are sometimes distrustful of insurance companies. Getting into trusted directories is a great way to build trust with your customers. 

Landscaping 

The landscape industry can be competitive, so it may take some creative advertising for you to get a foothold in your area, both in local SEO and local business directories. 

Be creative about using local listing resources and social media, but also consider these landscaping-specific platforms to list your business.

Locksmiths

Most people who need a locksmith only need one once or twice, but when they need one, they often need them in a hurry. Getting your company at the top of a directory listing is a good way to make sure that your number is the one that gets called. 

Nursing and Childcare

It should come as no surprise that people want to check a few reviews before trusting their child or loved one in the care of someone else. Great reviews make it much more likely that your company will succeed in the nursing and childcare industry. 

Pest Control

Pest control services are often expensive, and customers want to be absolutely sure that they will really be rid of the bugs when you’re done. Getting your business to the top of local business directories makes it more likely that you’ll get attention, while great reviews often trigger the call for an appointment. 

Plumbing 

Customers in need of plumbers often need services fast. Listing your business in every directory in the area makes it more likely that you’ll be found and win the trust of your customers quickly, which can make all the difference between landing and losing a job. 

Real Estate

Real estate is all about making connections. Realtors are generally already very familiar which listings for property, but you may not realize that these listings can also be useful for advertising and connecting with customers. 

It’s harder to find free directories for realtors, but it’s worth an investment into a directory listing to offer confidence that you’ll get ahead in this competitive industry. 

Marketing Your Local Business Online

There are thousands of online local business directories for you to choose from. Unfortunately, it can be challenging to find listings that are relevant for your business. I’ve sorted through the directories to help you find advantages in free local business directory listing opportunities for your local business. 

I wouldn’t submit to all of these sites. Submit to the top ones, upgrade to premium listings on sites with traffic where you can get a dofollowlink. Avoid directories with high spam score and no traffic or social following.

Getting your business listed is vital, but it’s, and shouldn’t be, where you end. Once you get your business, there are other marketing ideas you can try out to help you bring more leads to your business. If you need help getting your local business marketed contact us today.