The importance of higher search rankings is known to all small business owners and marketers. Google is the most popular search engine with more that half of the search engine market share. With the increasing importance given by Google to local listings in serving search results, registering your business in Google places as well as other local directories or yellow pages can improve your search rankings and give a boost to your business.
Registering your business in Google Local or Google Places is simple. All you need to do is go to Google website and select the option ‘your business on Google Maps’. Now enter all the basic information like the name of the business, description of business, address, zip code, email address, local phone number, country and website address. Providing detailed information will ensure that people can easily get in touch with you. For selection of relevant categories, you will get helpful suggestion from Google Places. You also need to specify the area in which your services are available. Inclusion of additional information like the payment options, opening and closing hours, photos and videos etc is recommended.
Other than Google, you can also register your business on other directories like Yahoo Local, Yelp.com, Bing Maps, YellowPages.com, Insider.com, Superpages.com, Yellowbook.com, Yellow.com, Switchboard.com, Dexknows.com etc.
Putting your business on these local websites combined with your local connections and positive reviews form satisfied customers will boost your search ranking for relevant search queries and also help you get many local leads. Registering to yellow pages is a cost effective tool for successful internet marketing, especially for small businesses