Introoductiion

Congraatulations! By readingg this eBoook, you’ve taken a ppositive step towards improving how yoour websitee gets found in the ssearch enggines.
When I first startedd working
wall. Whhy? Becauuse when I
on this eBoook, I truly felt as thoough I’d ruun into a brrick

first bega n my reseaarch for thhis eBook, II found list after listt of reputeedly top dirrectories too which wwe’re told wwe MUST suubmit our sites to in ordder to achhieve the bbest searchh results, only, many of them oonly alloweed

located from withinn the Uniteed States. business submissioons from companies What? It’s true! MMajor directories like:

· Bing Local
· Yahoo! Locaal · FoourSquare · CitySearch · InnsiderPages · Loocaleze

· · ·

·

Local.co om
Best of tthe Web Loocal
Gowallaa – Only Caanadian citty you may add yourr listing to is Vancouuver
infoUSA

You ma ay not have heard of many of those listeed in the above list, bbut they arre importaant directoories whichh are valueed highly bby the searrch enginees. And the higher ttheir valuee, the higheer up they rank.

As an a aside, in thee case of Bing Locall and Yahooo! Local, reportedlyy, they havve no intenntions of inncluding CCanadian-bbased commpanies until they add the resst of the worrld to their respectivee Local dirrectories. AAnd this steep is not aanywhere close too being onn the top oof their “to-do” list. Thhat is indeeed disappointing.

Howeve er, not is all lost to usCanadianns. In this eeBook, youu’ll learn about the top 5 directories that yoou MUST add your business to, followed by anotheer 13 directories I highlyy recommend. This iis not an eexclusive lisst, howeveer. More annd more directories aare createed and othhers that have been around foor a while rrise up to become more importtant to thee search enngines. Doo not limit yyourself to this list if youu have timme to condduct some of your owwn researcch.

WHY ISS THIS STEEP IMPORTANT TO TAKE?

The num mber of inbbound linkks your webbsite (or mmore speciffically, a sppecific page on yourr website)has is one of the keyy factors inn how mucch importaance the search engines give your sitte. The higgher your wwebsite rattes with thee search enginess, the moree likely theey are to place your links higheer up in thee search

CANADDA’S TOP DIRRECTORIES – TECHNIQUES TO ACHIEVE HIGH RANKIING LOCAL SEEARCH RESULLTS    Cluster Web Design – wwww.clusterwebddesign.com Pag e  | 1  This eBook preepared by www.clustterwebdesign.com/localsearchmarketting.html 

engine results. The higher your link is in the search engine results, the more traffic your site is likely to receive. The more traffic your site gets, the higher your chance is to receive more business, get more sales, and be more successful online.

For instance, when Google sees that a web site is getting a lot of Inbound Links, Google says that this website must be of importance and starts to rank your website highly.

However, not all inbound links are good. And while the intention of this eBook is not to be a tutorial for inbound links, let me just say that, the higher the quality of the inbound link is to your website, the more importance the search engines give to that link, and to your web site.

THE IMPORTANCE OF LOCAL DIRECTORIES

We all want to drive traffic to our website to (hopefully) increase revenue. That’s why adding a listing for your company in an online business directory is a smart, cost-effective advertising strategy as it increases exposure to your company.

Online business directories are the modern variations of the Yellow pages in your local phonebook. Two advantages of business directories are that (1) they are frequently free to join, and (2) are usually quick and simple to get by following step-by-step instructions. The biggest advantage is, of course, that it will increase traffic to your site serving a critical SEO purpose. Inbound links that search engines follow can help increase your site’s Google PageRank, which is a major factor in where your site places in the organic search listings.

Think about what a searcher might type into the search engine when looking for your business in your town or city.

As a case study, let’s say that you’re a plumber in Brandon, MB. Let’s say that someone in Brandon has a massive water leak in their basement and needs a plumber NOW! There is a 70% chance that this person will run to their computer instead of their phone book and type in something similar to “plumber, Brandon MB.” Every plumber located in Brandon, MB who took the time to add themselves to Google Maps (i.e. Google Local), 411.ca, YellowPages.ca, CanPages.ca, and CityDirect.info landed on the first page of Google and potentially “got the job” ahead of any plumbers not listed within any (or all) of those directories. And how many people are searching for plumbers in Brandon MB in any given month? Oh, about 31,500!

CANADA’S TOP DIRECTORIES – TECHNIQUES TO ACHIEVE HIGH RANKING LOCAL SEARCH RESULTS 

 

Only free directories are mentioned within this eBook. This means that, the only cost to you is the time you spend adding your business to these directories.

While preparing this eBook, I debated on whether to add screen shots of each directory and their respective listing steps. I decided that I would add screen shots even though it added a tremendous number of pages to this book because, in some cases, I wanted to add comments to screen shots in order to provide you with more information.

CANADA’S TOP DIRECTORIES – TECHNIQUES TO ACHIEVE HIGH RANKING LOCAL SEARCH RESULTS