SEO Tips: Top 10 Free Listing Sites to Add Your Brick & Mortar Business On

Leveraging listing sites to optimize your local brick and mortar business is critical. Many business owners I work with wonder, “Agatha, I have a website. Isn’t that enough?” Well, not exactly. The key component for strong SEO is simple (and yet incredibly difficult to actually achieve): Get Google to like you. One way to do that is to make sure you have consistent information about your business in many different places online. An “easy” way to achieve that? Leverage local listing sites like the ones I’m about to share with you. Let’s dive in, yeah?

10.     Angi.

For this one, I’m talking to you, home contractors. Formally known as Angie’s List, this local listings site gives you the opportunity to not only add important business information, but to also showcase project pictures of your best work. Unfortunately, you’ve missed the era of bomb advertising on this site simply due to the fact that its popularity has exploded in the last decade. There’s so much competition so you better have a strong budget. However, if you don’t have an advertising budget, that’s OK. I encourage you to at least claim your free listing. And then do your best to field the Angi sales calls you will receive shortly after your listing goes live.

If you’re not a home contractor, find other industry-specific listing sites such as Angi. They likely exist, you may just need to dedicate a Google search to find them!

9. Yelp

Oh, Yelp. The bane of my existence. The pineapple to my pizza. The thick, goopy creamer to my black coffee. I have a healthy hate-hate relationship with Yelp for reasons I won’t get into in this blog. But I would be doing you a disservice if this website wasn’t included in my list. Claim your business, optimize your page, and respond to your reviews. I promise it’ll do your SEO some good. But a warning to the wise: avoid advertising at all costs, your money is better spent elsewhere.

8. Better Business Bureau

Claiming your free listing on Better Business Bureau is a no brainer. But should you pay the extra fees for accreditation? In my opinion, it depends on your business. Message me if you want to learn more about this. But bottom line is: take advantage of your free listing! A presence and positive rating on this site builds credibility for your business.

7. NextDoor

OK, can I just share with you how much I love Nextdoor? It’s a neighborhood-centric platform that connects you with the people that live in your proximity. The one downfall of being such a relatively new platform is that the neighborhood your business is located within may not be “claimed” on the app. That means that none of your neighbors have taken the extra step to set up their neighborly communication, and without a claimed neighborhood, your business has nowhere to go on the site. Fingers crossed, though, you won’t run into this problem!

6. Bing

I know, who even uses Bing. Do you? No, seriously, who is using Bing? Either way, just claim your free listing and go on with your life. Bing will likely try to sync your unclaimed listing with an existing Google My Business listing, so if you’re already on Google, raise the roof. You’re good to go.

5. Facebook

The giant of the social medias. It’s true that this platform has fallen dramatically from its previous heights, but it’s definitely still worth having your business on. There are techniques you can use on this platform to further help your SEO, such as customizing your Facebook URL to match the name of your business and encouraging a regular flow of reviews/recommendations. If you’re unsure about your business page’s optimization health, request a marketing professional to audit your page to ensure everything is top-notch.

4. LinkedIn

It’s important to note that shareable posts (articles, videos, etc.) made on a business LinkedIn page are not indexed (or “crawled”) by Google. So, how can being on this platform help in your ultimate SEO strategy? By leveraging your personal account. You can affect your company’s rankings on search engines like Google by: the amount of connections you have on your personal page, how many Likes, Comments, Shares you receive on consistently posted content, and how non-private your page is. Moral of this story? Leverage your personal LinkedIn account vs. creating and building a following with a business page.

3. TikTok and/or Instagram

These two platforms deserve their own number, but for the purpose of creating a neatly packaged “Top 10” list, I’ve combined them into one. Before adding your business to either of these social media pages, I do offer one (big!) piece of advice: if you’re not going to post consistent content on them, don’t do it. A quick way to hurt your business’ credibility is creating social media pages that sit stagnant. We can smell that musty dust for miles, so it’s better to move on to #2 if you don’t have a dedicated person taking on this full-time content creation job.

2. Apple Maps

Apple Maps is a popular navigation tool that your customers are using to get to you – is your listing verified on there? Here’s where you can go to find out. Your business may already be present, since the app pulls data from other listing sites, but is your profile branded with your logo, business description, business hours, and website? If not, get to it.

1. Google My Business

Is there a bigger coo de gras to your business than not listing and optimizing yourself on Google My Business and Google Maps? These days, most businesses can track their phone calls (for free), sync the Bookings section with their in-house booking software to allow closed business tracking, and so much more.

There’s more to this platform than just claiming your listing, so after you claim it and optimize it, make sure you’re updating content in the posting section, responding to reviews, and adding new photos. If you’re not playing nice with Google, you can’t expect to rank on Google!

Have questions? Contact Agatha, your Rochester, MI marketing expert. Let’s brainstorm your business together.