Updated 14th Jan 2019
What is a Business Directory?
An online business directory is a website that lists the business information within niche based categories.
Categories usually consist of location, business type, size or niche, and the details for each listing will vary, but will usually include:
- Business Name
- Address
- Telephone Number (multiple options)
- Location
- Contact Info
- Website
- Hours of Business
- Type of Service or Products
- Region
- Size of Company
- Reviews
- Professional or Industry Associations
A printed business directory is far less common these days, an example would be the Yellow Pages.
Who needs to be listed in a Business Directory?
Every business needs to be listed in a business directory. It’s a great way for new and existing customers to find you, and these days it’s the first place they look – online.
To grow your business you need to reach as many people as you can, and to do that you need to be listed in all the major business directories and everywhere your competitors are as well.
Why do you need to be listed in a Business Directory?
So your customers can find you.
You have to make things easy for them, nobody has the time to waste looking for a business phone number.
They will find somebody else.
But the other reasons that you need to be listed is that it helps your company:
- Build and grow its brand – it’s called Brand Awareness
- Engage with more people – people find your listing and click on your website, they like what they see and they call you.
- Increase sales – with more traffic to your website you have a higher chance on increasing your sales.
- Build authority – not just with your customers, but also the search engines
- Improve you reputation – a glowing representation and loyal customer reviews and feedback will build loyalty and trust with your new customers.
Helpful How To Get Started Tips - Watch Video
When should you list your business in a Business Directory?
Right now.
If you aren’t already listed, then you should get started, and it doesn’t matter if you have a brand new business or one that has been around for years.
Keeping your listing updated is important, when business contact or location details change you should be updating all the details in each of your business listings.
It’s important because Google likes things to be consistent – which means your NAP (name, address & phone number) need to be the same wherever you business is listed.
If not properly managed it can affect your rankings in Google.
Where do I find these Business Directories and which ones should I use?
There’s a big list of Business Directories provided below and we’ll make it easy for you to see which ones are important.
The better directory listings have a higher DA (domain authority) which is value earned by reputation from the Search Engines.
Getting listed on the higher DA sites is better.
It’s also important to insert your website address / link wherever you can, every link from a reputable website helps to improve your sites chances of performing better in the search results.
How do I list my company in these Business Directories?
I’ll take you through the process, there’s a right way and a wrong way.
In each of the listings below I’ll provide details of how to prepare your company contact details, where to submit your site, how long it takes, as well as how to enter your details.
We’ll also make available our Done For You service, a fast, reliable Business Directory listing service that will save you hours of your precious time.
THE TOP 20 LOCAL BUSINESS DIRECTORIES
#1 Facebook
Build a Brand page in Facebook and you can manage local presence with pages for each location’s identity and offerings. Facebook allow your brand’s existing & potential customers to interact with you (the business owner) as it continues to capture more local searches and increase local awareness.
- Free: Yes (basic listing)
- Estimated Setup: 20 mins
- Top 40 AUS Directories: Yes
- Domain Authority: 100
#2 Apple Maps Connect
Apple Maps is a powerful platform for local businesses, it’s the default map system of iOS, macOS, and watchOS. It provides directions and estimated times of arrival for automobile, pedestrian, and public transportation navigation.
It’s important to local businesses because Apple Maps is now used three times as often as its “next leading competitor”
- Free: Yes
- Estimated Setup: 15 mins
- Top 40 AUS Directories: Yes
- Requires Verification: Yes
- Domain Authority: 100
#3 Bing Business
Bing has approx 12% of the Australian search market share, and more than 190 million searches a month, and is a must for local businesses.
It is the default search engine for Siri, crucial for voice-activated local searches. It also powers sites like AOL, Yahoo, and is the default search engine for Microsoft Windows devices.
- Free: Yes (basic listing)
- Estimated Setup: 20 mins
- Top 40 AUS Directories: Yes
- Domain Authority: 99
#4 Foursquare
Foursquare has more than 10,000 active Australian users per month and is one of the leading location-based social network. Users may retrieve details on local businesses, receive recommendations, or check in to locations publicly. With 70M+ recommendations & over 7B check-ins to local businesses.
- Free: Yes (basic listing)
- Estimated Setup: 10 mins
- Top 40 AUS Directories: Yes
- Domain Authority: 94
#5 Google My Business
With over 90% of Australians using Google, the Google My Business (GMB) is absolutely crucial for your local business. In today’s mobile world, accurate location data is more important than ever to maximize opportunities to drive traffic from search. The GMB listing supplies business data to Google Search, Google Maps, Google+ and Waze.
Want to check to see if your business is already listed, then go to Google Maps, and search for your own business name. Pay particular attention to the location and all information; these may be out of date.
- Free: Yes (basic listing)
- Estimated Setup: 15 mins
- Top 40 AUS Directories: Yes
- Domain Authority: 92
#6 Yellow Pages
Yellow Pages® has business listings, phone numbers, maps, email addresses & websites for local Australian businesses. Yellow Pages offers free and paid listings of local businesses to help your business get found online.
- Free: Yes (basic listing)
- Estimated Setup: 10 mins
- Top 40 AUS Directories: Yes
- Domain Authority: 84
#7 Spoke
Spoke captures business info from all around the world. With 1.4M+ companies and over 40K topics. A platform for conversation, constantly being updated for insights into 100’s of industries.
- Free: Yes
- Estimated Setup: 10 mins
- Top 40 AUS Directories: Yes
- Domain Authority: 71
#8 True Local
True Local is ideal for local suburb and state-based industry. They tend to highlight businesses such as trade, plumbers, restaurants, cafes, nightclubs, travel agents, hotels and beauty salons.
They offer a do follow links to your business website as well as service quote and email facilities in their listings.
- Free: Yes
- Estimated Setup: 10 mins
- Number of Top 3 Rankings: 9,910 keywords
- Top 40 AUS Directories: Yes
- Estimated Monthly Visits: 508K
- Domain Authority: 70
#9 2 Find Local
2FindLocal is a business directory that promotes local deals to local consumers. They have a unique search algorithm that enables consumers to see what’s trending in their own hyper-local Town or Community.
- Free: Yes
- Estimated Setup: 8 mins
- Top 40 AUS Directories: Yes
- Domain Authority: 66
#10 Community Walk
Community Walk is a very powerful website that provides an easy-to-use interface to create incredibly interactive maps of anything. With beginnings in mapping communities, it is becoming the destination site to explore (and create) the most interesting maps on the web.
- Free: Yes
- Estimated Setup: 12 mins
- Top 40 AUS Directories: Yes
- Domain Authority: 65
#11 BrownBook
Brownbook is great for small businesses, it allows you to enhance you listing with additional text, images, videos, and social links. BrownBook is one of the worlds largest Global Business Listing Database, and its still growing fast, it lists over 35 million businesses in more than 220 countries.
- Free: Yes
- Estimated Setup: 10 mins
- Top 40 AUS Directories: Yes
- Domain Authority: 63
#12 YELP
Yelp was founded in 2004 to help people find great local businesses like dentists, hair stylists and mechanics, with a monthly average of 34 million unique visitors who visited Yelp via the Yelp app and 75 million unique visitors who visited Yelp via mobile web in Q3 2018.
Every business owner (or manager) can setup a free account to post photos and message their customers. Yelp makes money by selling ads to local businesses – you’ll see these clearly labeled “Yelp Ads” around the site.
They offer a do follow links to your business website as well as service quote and email facilities in their listings.
- Free: Yes
- Estimated Setup: 10 mins
- Number of Top 3 Rankings: 9,910 keywords
- Top 40 AUS Directories: Yes
- Estimated Monthly Visits: 508K
- Domain Authority: 62
#13 Tupalo
Every month, more than 3 million consumers visit Tupalo.com in order to find information and recommendations on local businesses all over the world. Tupalo offers free and paid listings, with the free listing, you are able to display your basic business details on Tupalo containing business name, address, phone number, website URL, pictures and Wi-Fi information
- Free: Yes
- Estimated Setup: 10 mins
- Top 40 AUS Directories: Yes
- Domain Authority: 61
#14 Word of Mouth
Word of Mouth is an Australian business review site. It’s a user-generated directory where people share the experiences they have your businesses – both good and bad. Every day, Word of Mouth helps thousands of people search out businesses that contains reviews with real customer’s experiences.
- Free: Yes
- Estimated Setup: 10 mins
- Top 40 AUS Directories: Yes
- Domain Authority: 59
#15 Start Local
StartLocal is an Australian Business Directory. It includes both free and paid plans and allows you link to your website from the free account, this can provide you with an SEO Benefit which will help you rank better in Search Engines.
- Free: Yes
- Estimated Setup: 10 mins
- Top 40 AUS Directories: Yes
- Domain Authority: 58
#16 Show Me Local
Start Local is ideal for local suburb and state-based industry. They tend to highlight businesses such as trade, plumbers, restaurants, cafes, nightclubs, travel agents, hotels and beauty salons.
They offer a do follow links to your business website as well as service quote and email facilities in their listings.
- Free: Yes
- Estimated Setup: 10 mins
- Number of Top 3 Rankings: 9,910 keywords
- Top 40 AUS Directories: Yes
- Estimated Monthly Visits: 508K
- Domain Authority: 58
#17 Hot Frog
Hot Frog is ideal for local suburb and state-based industry. They tend to highlight businesses such as trade, plumbers, restaurants, cafes, nightclubs, travel agents, hotels and beauty salons.
They offer a do follow links to your business website as well as service quote and email facilities in their listings.
- Free: Yes
- Estimated Setup: 10 mins
- Number of Top 3 Rankings: 9,910 keywords
- Top 40 AUS Directories: Yes
- Estimated Monthly Visits: 508K
- Domain Authority: 54
#18 Where 2 Go
Where2Go is one of the world’s oldest & largest independent website directory. Online since 1995 and committed to providing all business websites equal footing, with a contextual search unmatched by anyone.
- Free: Yes
- Estimated Setup: 10 mins
- Top 40 AUS Directories: Yes
- Domain Authority: 54
#19 Local Search
Local Search is ideal for local suburb and state-based industry. They tend to highlight businesses such as trade, plumbers, restaurants, cafes, nightclubs, travel agents, hotels and beauty salons.
They offer a do follow links to your business website as well as service quote and email facilities in their listings.
- Free: Yes
- Estimated Setup: 10 mins
- Number of Top 3 Rankings: 9,910 keywords
- Top 40 AUS Directories: Yes
- Estimated Monthly Visits: 508K
- Domain Authority: 52
#20 LACARTES
LACARTES is ideal for local suburb and state-based industry. They tend to highlight businesses such as trade, plumbers, restaurants, cafes, nightclubs, travel agents, hotels and beauty salons.
They offer a do follow links to your business website as well as service quote and email facilities in their listings.
- Free: Yes
- Estimated Setup: 10 mins
- Number of Top 3 Rankings: 9,910 keywords
- Top 40 AUS Directories: Yes
- Estimated Monthly Visits: 508K
- Domain Authority: 51
#21 THALES
Thales Directory is ideal for local suburb and state-based industry. They tend to highlight businesses such as trade, plumbers, restaurants, cafes, nightclubs, travel agents, hotels and beauty salons.
They offer a do follow links to your business website as well as service quote and email facilities in their listings.
- Free: Yes
- Estimated Setup: 10 mins
- Number of Top 3 Rankings: 9,910 keywords
- Top 40 AUS Directories: Yes
- Estimated Monthly Visits: 508K
- Domain Authority: 51
