How to Get Listed in Online Business Directories

Remember the good old “yellow pages” listing every business in your area? What a great way to advertise a small business! These books do not exist anymore and were replaced by online business directories. Here is how to take advantage of the online business directories to promote your small business.

By Alain Houle, Alco Web Design LLC

Yellow pages and online business directories

Good Old Telephone Books

​In the old days of telephone books, the “white pages” were used to list the phone number of every person living in an area and the “yellow pages” were used to list the businesses in that area. Those books were distributed to every household and used constantly for personal and business needs. The yellow pages were a powerful way to reach local customers and savvy business owners would make sure their business would be listed.

Online Business Directories

The telephone books are long gone but online business directories now offer the same services. There are hundreds of those online business directories. Some are more important than others and most would list your business for free.

Submitting your business information to the business directories is not difficult and does not require special skills or black magic. But finding those directories and submitting the same information multiple times is frankly quite painful. We work with a third-party company that specializes in those services. Please contact us if you need any help submitting your business to the business directories.

By far, the most important business directories are Google and Microsoft and creating your business listing with those companies is of the utmost importance. For that reason, we recommend business owners to manually submit their business to those directories. Here is how to do it and how to set somebody up as your account manager once your account is active. Please contact us if you need help managing your Google My Business or Bing Places accounts.

Google (Google my Business or GMB)
1. Setup a Google account for your business (How to setup a Google account)
2. Manage your GMB account (How to manage a GMB account)
3. Optional: Allow somebody to manage your GMB account (How to add manager to GMB account)

Microsoft (Bing Places)
1. Setup a Bing Places account for your business (How to create a Microsoft Account)
2. Manage your Bing Places account (How to add or claim a Bing Places business listing)
3. Optional: Allow somebody to manage your Bing Places account (How to add manager to Bing Places business account)

We Can Help

​For more information about how you can take advantage of the online business directories to promote your small business, please contact us Alco Web Design LLC and we will get back to you promptly.