Let me just start this little informative article by explaining why I wrote it.  The Yellow Pages are dead.  And expensive to advertise in.  We all get 2 or 3 different phone books delivered to our homes or offices a year.  What do we do with them?  Use them to replace that lost leg on the couch?  Less and less people are turning to the yellow pages.  Who wants to stand up and walk over to the book shelf or dig through that low drawer in your desk for the phone book, when you can just not move and pop what you need into Google’s search bar.  Sure phone books list everything, but who wants to flip through a 1000 page book and try to figure out what category your looking for.  Then you have to remember where in the alphabet the first three letters of that category fall.  Then when you get to the section that you’re looking for, like “Dry Cleaners” you are told to “See: Laundry Services.”  Crap.  I’ve got to start over.

What I’ll do here is explain how to get listed for free in about 10 minutes on three of the most visited sites on the internet.  If you can fill out a web form then you can increase the amount of traffic to your website or phone calls into your office.  This rest of this short article will guide you through submitting your business listing to these 3 major services.

When somebody searches for a business or service near their home Google, Bing and Yahoo will all display a few local listings on a map with applicable businesses.  This is displayed on the first search page below their sponsored results and above the regular organic search results.  The benefit of this is that you don’t have to pay to be a sponsored result and you also don’t have to pay me $750 for search engine optimization to get to the top of the regular organic results.  It’s a win-win.

So here are the links which will take you to the directories.  In the handy dandy description next to each you will see why I listed these three.

1. Google Local Business Center – According to Alexa.com over the past 3 months 42.5% of all people on the internet used Google.

2. Bing Local Listing Center - According to Alexa.com over the past 3 months 3.91% of people on the internet used Bing.

3. Yahoo Local Listings – According to Alexa.com over the past 3 months 2.79% of people on the internet visited Yahoo.

So, if you were to only list your business in one directory, it is pretty obvious that Google’s Local Business Center would be the one.  Nevertheless, once you submit your business to Google and see how easy it was, you will not hesitate to add it to Bing or Yahoo as well.

Step 2. If you have a Google or Gmail Account go ahead and login.

Step 3. When you login you will be directed to the dashboard.  Find the link that says “Add a new listing” and click on it.  You will then be directed to a page that looks like this.  This is real straight forward and easy to do.  Just fill in the information requested about your business.

Be as detailed as possible and put as much information in as you can.  Since you can not control how people will contact you make sure that you give the audience as many options as possible, i.e. phone, fax, email or website.

Additionally, be sure to use all 5 categories to describe your business.  The object is to not be deceptive but be accurate and visible in any category which might apply.

Step 4. When you finish filling out the first page click “Next” at the bottom and proceed.

Step 5. Google will then check to see if your listing already exists.  The second page will then pop up with places for you to input your hours of operation, a map with your location, payment options and photos or videos.  Generally speaking, listings on the internet with pictures tend to do better than those without.  So seriously consider uploading a logo or photo.  Fill out all of the information and then finally click “Submit.”

Step 6. You will then be directed to the final page which will let you know that Google will send you a postcard with a 4 digit PIN on it in the mail.  That PIN, when you receive the postcard, will need to be entered to verify your business and address.  Just log back in and verify the listing when you receive the post card and wait for the phone to ring.  It will.

I will spare you the remaining boring details of registering with Bing and Yahoo.  If you were able to complete the Google listing Bing and Yahoo will be simple and straightforward.  The process is essentially the same.

If you don’t have a Bing or Yahoo account you can sign up for them by clicking the links below:

Then proceed to the respective local business directory.

Also, if you’d like to get a free 50+ page report describing how your website compares to the top 10 sites on Google then please click here and fill out this simple form.  It is 100% free and is worth about $250.  Find out what you competitors are doing that you’re not.

Your welcome and good luck.

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