Improving Your SEO by Listing Your Company in Directories

Listing your company in relevant online directories is an SEO tactic that requires a low lift but makes a high impact. As RivalMind shares, “Online directory listings serve as an introduction to prospective customers searching for your business and as an indicator of relevance to Google.” Often including your NAP (name, address, and phone number), these listings make it easy for your ideal clients or customers to find you and get in contact with you when they need you.

Discover the benefits of listing your business in online directories, the process for finding the right directories, the best steps to take when adding your business to these directories, and the tactics for ensuring your listings are successful.

Listing Your Company in Online Directories

The Benefits of Adding Your Company to Online Directories

The best part about getting started with listing your company in directories is it’s often free to do so. Unless the directory is part of a website that has some type of membership option, the majority of the most common directories simply require setting up an account. Listing your company in relevant places provides a clear set of benefits.

Enhanced Local SEO

Listing your company in online directories significantly boosts your local SEO, primarily through NAP consistency and local citations. Your NAP involves crucial elements that search engines use to verify your business’s legitimacy and relevance. By ensuring that your NAP information is consistent across all directories, you help search engines confidently associate your business with a specific location. This consistency is a key factor in improving your local search rankings.

Additionally, each directory listing acts as a local citation, which is a mention of your business’s details on various platforms. These citations signal to search engines that your business is established and relevant within a particular geographical area. As a result, your business is more likely to appear in local search results, such as the “local pack” on Google, where many potential customers look for nearby services. Overall, consistent directory listings help build your business’s local authority, making it easier for local customers to find you when searching for related products or services.

Increased Website Traffic

Online directories can significantly increase your website traffic through both direct and indirect means. One of the primary benefits is referral traffic. When potential customers search through these directories and find your business, they often click through to your website to learn more. This direct traffic is highly targeted, as these users are actively seeking the products or services you offer, leading to higher engagement and conversion rates. Additionally, many directories have optimized mobile apps or mobile-friendly websites, which cater to the growing number of users conducting searches on their smartphones. This mobile accessibility ensures that your business can capture the attention of on-the-go consumers, driving even more traffic to your site.

Indirectly, the presence of your business in various directories improves your SEO by providing valuable backlinks and local citations, which help increase your website’s ranking on search engines. As your visibility improves in search engine results pages (SERPs), you attract more organic traffic from users who might not have initially searched through a directory but found your site due to its enhanced ranking.

Improved Credibility and Trust

When potential customers see your business listed in well-known directories such as Google My Business, Yelp, or industry-specific directories, it reassures them that your company is legitimate and established. These directories often have specific listing criteria, so being included signals to customers that your business meets certain standards of quality and reliability.

Additionally, many directories feature customer reviews and ratings, which play a crucial role in building trust. Positive reviews and high ratings on trusted platforms can greatly influence potential customers’ decisions, making them more likely to choose your business over competitors.

Lastly, directories that allow for detailed business descriptions, images, and even responses to reviews give you an opportunity to showcase your brand’s personality and customer service, further enhancing your reputation. This boost in credibility is not just perceived by customers but also by search engines, which may rank your business higher in search results, leading to increased visibility and more traffic.

How to Find the Right Directories

Adding your business to random directories without any clear correlation to who you are and what you offer can do more harm than good. It’s critical to be intentional about the places where you’re listing your business to ensure you’re only reaching your ideal clients or customers in relevant places. There are three types of directories you can seek for your business.

General Business Directories

General business directories are where any business can submit a listing, regardless of their location or industry. These directories typically have high domain authority and are frequently visited by potential customers, ensuring that your business is visible to a large audience.

Examples of these directories include:

Google My Business
Yelp
Bing Places for Business
Facebook Business Page
Yellow Pages
Better Business Bureau (BBB)
Foursquare
Angie’s List
Thumbtack
Manta
Superpages

Although not all of these directories may apply to your business, it’s helpful to do some light research to see which ones are the right fit.

Industry-Specific Directories

An industry-specific directory is a specialized online platform that lists businesses and professionals within a particular industry or sector. These directories focus on a specific niche, offering detailed information about companies, their products, services, and contact details relevant to that industry. Use cases include medical directories for healthcare providers, legal directories for attorneys, or hospitality directories for hotels and restaurants.

If we were to list Dash of Social in directories specific to marketing agencies, we might consider:

Clutch
UpCity
DesignRush
Agency Spotter
The Manifest
Sortlist
GoodFirms
Agency Directory (AdForum)
Marketing Agency Network (MAN)
TopSEOs

Industry-specific directories attract users who are already interested in or need services within that particular industry. Being listed here ensures that your business is seen by a highly targeted and relevant audience, increasing the chances of attracting potential customers who are specifically looking for what you offer.

Local Directories

A local directory is an online platform that lists businesses within a specific geographic area, such as a city, region, or neighborhood. If your company works mostly in-person, these directories are crucial for your local visibility.

Examples of Massachusetts-based directories are:

Massachusetts Business Network
Marshfield Chamber of Commerce
Boston Business Women
Cranberry Country Chamber of Commerce

These directories focus on helping consumers find and connect with businesses in their vicinity, ensuring that the results are targeted and relevant.

Best Practices for Adding Your Company to Directories

If you’d like to reach maximum results when adding your company to directories, it’s important to ensure that you fill out each listing completely, adding as much information as possible.

Gather Necessary Information

The more information you can include about your company, the better. Be sure to have this information handy:

Company name
Address
Phone number
Website
Business description
Hours of operation

And more. You want to make it easy and convenient for your ideal clients or customers to find the information they need if they’d like to contact you.

Optimize Your Listing

Adding your company’s contact information and general description is just the first step. If you’d really like to make a splash with your listing, be as thorough and visual as possible. That includes:

Using keywords effectively in descriptions
Adding high-quality images and logos
Incorporating customer reviews

If a potential client or customer comes across your listing and notices that it’s bare bones, they likely won’t have much trust in you and may opt to connect with your competition. The more information you share with your audience, the more trust they’ll have in your product or service.

Manage and Update Your Listing

Creating a listing isn’t just a “one and done” task. In order to get the most visibility from these directories, it’s important to update your listing throughout time to ensure that the information is accurate and fresh. This may include:

Updating brand assets
Swapping out new photos
Posting accurate business hours to account for holiday closures
Including new services offered
Encouraging customers to leave reviews

You never want a potential client or customer to stumble upon your listing and see information that’s out of date or no longer relevant. Creating a recurring task for this in your project management system can make a big difference.

Improving Your Company’s Online Presence

Partner with a Marketing Agency

Developing and executing a successful marketing strategy all comes down to one variable: time. If you don’t have the time or resources in-house to manage your marketing efforts, consider working with a marketing agency who can take this off your plate and bring the results you’ve always wanted.

Reach out to Dash of Social for a free consultation to learn more about how we can support you.