A Quick, How-To Guide for getting listed on Local Search engines for Free

or "The Growth of Local Search for Small Businesses."

--December 13th, 2006

There is a lot of debate among online marketing professionals regarding the popularity of Internet Yellow Pages, also known as IYP. What's better? Traditional, printed Yellow Pages and directories, or online yellow pages? While it may be too early to tell, it is simply obvious that printed materials have had to make room for online content that's snagging up their market share. Printed Newspaper readership has dropped, while a growing number of people get their daily updates and news feeds online. More people do their shopping online than ever. The average Denver resident will spend $558.84 (around 50%) of their $1,113.67 overall budget online. ¹

Just a few years ago you had to manually submit your website to a search engine to get indexed for all that extra traffic. Today, the same basic principle applies to Internet Yellow Pages, but this time you're submitting your business location (website not necessary), for the extra exposure.

Whether or not local search accounts for a significant chunk of web traffic now, it is inevitable that its growing. With the simultaneous growth of mobile search, local search will be a force to be reckoned with so take advantage of it today while its still free.

Enough debate, here's how our guide on local search:

Local Search Major Players²

The Big Boys

Yahoo! Local - local.yahoo.com - It's a neck and neck race between Yahoo and Google for the local search market. Unlike Google, Yahoo! does not require manual confirmation.
Get Listed on Yahoo! Local here.
Google Local - local.google.com - Google will send out a postcard to you with a confirmation code once you submit your listing. Can take 4-6 weeks.
Get Listed on Google Local here.

The Underdogs

InfoUSA.com - infoUSA.com - InfoUSA is not so much a local directory as much as it is a giant collector of data. InfoUSA data powers many of the small local search engines such as AOL Local, Dogpile, and more.
Get Registered with InfoUSA here
Ask - Ask City - Ask City was recently launched by Ask to directly compete with Google and Yahoo! The interactivity provided by their map is unmatched by both Google and Yahoo. Requires manual submission through e-mail or phone.
Get Listed on Ask City here.
Microsoft Live Search - Live Search - Another recently launched attempt to compete with Google and Yahoo! for the local search market. The features and interactivity from both Ask and Microsoft could prove to be some worthy competition.
Get Listed on Live Search here.
Merchant Circle- Merchant Circle - Lets you promote your business through a variety of tools, including a blog and business reviews.
Get Listed on Merchant Circle here.

The "Others"

Yellow Pages - yellowpages.com - They started it on paper. Too bad they only have roughly 4% of the local search market.
Get Listed on Yellow pages here.
Verizon Superpages - superpages.com - Verizon is a leader in printed Yellow Pages, but their online version has a long way to go to catch up with Google and Yahoo! (Careful, a rep will probably call you and offer you Pay-Per-Click services. Do your research before diving in.) * (Also powers the Info
Get Listed on Superpages here.
Local - Local.com - Name says it all, but hey, you never know who is looking from that 1.9% market share.
Get Listed on Local.com here.
True Local - TrueLocal.com - TrueLocal is a local search engine free to hundreds of thousands of users.
Get Listed on TrueLocal.com here.
ZoomInfo - ZoomInfo.com
Get Listed on ZoomInfo.com here.
InfoSpace - InfoSpace.com
Get Listed on Infospace.com here.
YP - YP.com
Get Listed on YP.com here.
Yelp! - Yelp.com
Get Listed on Yelp.com here.