Top Free Local and Business Listing Sites for US, UK, And Canada

Local SEO is a must when you have a business with a physical location and expect customers to visit. You will need to pay special attention to location-specific SEO requirements for your site apart from other generic SEO essentials.
 

US Local And Business-

http://www.focus.com
http://www.hotfrog.com
http://www.manta.com
http://www.aboutus.org
http://www.jobaba.com
http://www.myhuckleberry.com
http://www.judysbook.com
http://www.kudzu.com
http://maps.google.com/
http://listings.local.yahoo.com/
http://www.local.com
https://ssl.bing.com/
http://www.localpages.com/
http://us.wowcity.com
https://www.supermedia.com
http://www.mojopages.com
http://citysquares.com
http://www.thinklocal.com/
http://www.localizedbiz.com
http://www.usbdn.com/
http://www.freeindex.com
https://www.jigsaw.com/
http://www.matchpoint.com/
https://www.xing.com
http://www.mylocalservices.us
http://www.localeze.com
https://www.yellowbot.com
http://www.ontowns.com
http://www.localdatabase.com
http://www.yelp.com
http://www.zoominfo.com/
http://www.city-visitor.com
http://www.lookuppage.com
http://www.business-floor.com
http://www.localclick.com
http://www.yellowusa.com
http://www.magicyellow.com/
http://wowcity.com
http://www.ecademy.com
http://www.shopcity.com
https://www.cityslick.net/
http://www.ijijiji.com/us/
http://www.brownbook.net
http://hudsonvalley.com/
http://internet800directory.com/
http://www.add-page.com
http://www.addmelocal.com
http://browselocalsite.com
http://www.ziggs.com
http://www.insiderpages.com/
http://www.thebluebook.com/
http://www.zidster.com/
http://www.buyerzone.com/
http://www.thomasnet.com/
http://www.expressupdateusa.com
http://www.antya.com
http://www.xomreviews.com
http://www.gather.com
http://www.myspace.com
http://www.linkedin.com/
http://www.ziggs.com
http://www.xanga.com/
http://www.yellowusa.com
http://my.citysquares.com
http://www.insiderpages.com
http://www.superpages.com
http://www.whitepages.com
http://tupalo.com
http://www.lookuppage.com/
https://www.supermedia.com/
http://inter800.com/
http://www.merchantcircle.com
http://www.bizwiki.com/
http://www.citysearch.com/
http://www.productionhub.com/
http://www.yellowbot.com/
http://www.411.com
http://www.anywho.com/
http://www.switchboard.com
http://www.getfave.com
http://www.dexknows.com
http://www.cityfos.com
http://www.ziggs.com
http://www.yellowbook.com/
http://www.kudzu.com/
https://www.smartguy.com
http://www.powerprofiles.com
http://www.yellowpagecity.com
http://www.usdirectory.com
http://www.localsearch.com
http://yellowpages.superpages.com/
http://www.thumbtack.com/
http://www.yelp.com/.
https://www.thinklocal.com
http://eurekster.com/
http://www.my-company-profile.com
http://www.zipcode2business.com
http://www.siccode.com
http://www.killerstartups.com
http://oogads.com
http://www.yellowee.com/
https://www.referralkey.com/
https://advertise.local.com

UK local And Bussiness-

http://www.aboutus.org/
http://www.focus.com
http://www.ecademy.com
http://www.scoot.co.uk
http://www.freeindex.co.uk
http://businessfinder.com
http://www.flesko.co.uk/
https://www.gomy.co.uk
http://www.manta.com/
http://www.ukforbusiness.co.uk/
http://www.ziggs.com/
http://www.incompany.com
http://www.kentfind.co.uk
http://www.brownbook.net
http://vator.tv/
http://www.mysheriff.co.uk
http://www.118.com
http://www.brightonpages.co.uk
http://maps.google.co.uk
http://www.uksuperweb.co.uk
http://www.mylocalservices.co.uk
http://www.ukfreedirectory.com/
http://www.uksmallbusinessdirectory.co.uk
http://www.yourparish.co.uk
http://www.localmole.co.uk/
http://www.freeadvertising-business.co.uk/
http://www.touchlocal.com/
http://advertising.theigroup.co.uk
http://www.uktopwebsites.co.uk
http://www.4ni.co.uk/
http://www.inorthernireland.co.uk
http://www.businesspad.org
http://www.antya.com
http://www.xomreviews.com
http://www.thomsonlocal.com
http://www.citylocal.co.uk
http://www.caithness-business.co.uk/
http://www.searchme4.co.uk
https://www.yellowbot.com
http://www.yellowpagecity.com
http://www.gomy.co.uk/
http://www.myneighbourhoods.co.uk
http://www.gather.com
http://www.ikarma.com/
http://www.qype.co.uk
http://www.ibedfordshire.co.uk/
http://uk.localpages.com/
http://www.links-directory.co.uk
http://uk-local-search.co.uk
http://www.thephonebook.bt.com
http://www.alondondir.com
http://www.bizwiki.com
http://www.192.com
http://www.yelldirect.com
http://www.myspace.com
https://www.xing.com
http://www.linkedin.com/
http://www.ziggs.com
http://www.judysbook.com
http://www.xanga.com/



Canada local And Business-


http://maps.google.ca/
http://www.localsites.ca/
http://ca.local.yahoo.com/
http://www.localeconomy.ca
http://www.weblocal.ca/
http://www.aroundstratford.com
http://www.fixmyinfo.com
http://www.411.ca/
http://www.on-biz.ca
http://www1.canpages.ca
http://www.canadaone.com/
http://www.lookuppage.com
http://www.brownbook.net
http://ylm.ca/
http://www.genieknows.com
http://listingsca.com
http://www.freebizads.ca
http://www.fraservalleybc.com
http://www.everythingalberta.com
http://www.judysbook.com
http://www.shopincanada.com/
http://www.canadianbusinessdirectory.ca
http://www.hotfrog.ca
http://www.myspace.com
http://www.vendorland.ca/
http://www.productionhub.com
https://www.jigsaw.com/
http://canada.oodle.com
http://www.rateitall.com
http://www.yellowpages.ca/
https://www.xing.com
http://www.focus.com
http://www.linkedin.com/
http://www.gather.com
http://www.manta.com
http://www.ziggs.com
http://www.aboutus.org
http://www.linksite.ca/
http://www.canpages.ca
http://www.finditincanada.ca
http://www.searchcalgary.ca
http://www.goldbook.ca
http://www.canada411.ca/
http://www.xanga.com/

Note- It is important that you manually list your business in these directories by choosing the right business categories and entering consistent information throughout all the directories. Also, even though not all directories pass link juice to your site, search engines such as Google notice the citation of your business on these sites and this affects the local ranking algorithm. - See more at: http://www.linkbuildingupdates.org/2013/05/top-free-local-and-business-listing.html#sthash.Awa5MXlB.dpuf

Read More

Top 10 Earning Blogs and Bloggers in India

Top 10 Indian blogs and bloggers who are earning big bucks by blogging are actually trendsetter for Indian bloggers and inspiration for millions of bloggers all around the World. They rules the roost in blogosphere. They dictates authority in their niche.

They work from their home, in their own time, express their thoughts independently, freakout in their free time and finally “ Live their Life King Size ” earning big money consistently. Their biodata, blogging activities and rise in the blogging arena truly inspire newbie bloggers of India and Worldwide.

I have compiled the earnings data of the top 10 blogs in India by considering or analyzing the below parameters. Income from offline activities are excluded.

• Google AdSense, BuySellAds or likes
• Affiliate income
• Personal feedback
• Page views, CTR, Google PR/Alexa

List of top 10 earning blogs in India

1# Blog Name: Labnol.org  Founder: Amit Agarwal

Alexa Traffic Rank = 1997  Google PR = 6

Earnings / month = US$ 17,000

Mr. Amit Agarwal is the undisputed king of Indian blogosphere. Basically, he blogs about Science and Technology in his blog called Digital Inspiration. An engineer of Computer Science from IIT (Indian Institute of Technology), worked for Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch, Amit quits his job in 2004 to become India’s first and only professional blogger. He has been the winner of MVP (Most Valuable Professional) award by Microsoft for 5 consecutive years( 2007-2011). His India Blog School is a true guide for newbie bloggers. His blog is the 1st top earning blog in India.

2# Blog Name: SaveDelete.com  Founder: Jaspal Singh

Alexa Traffic Rank = 10,331  Google PR = 4

Earnings / month = US$ 5000

Mr. Jaspal Singh founded his technology blog SaveDelete.com in Oct 2009. A Mechanical Engineer cum Professional Blogger has set an example for newbies – How to be a successful blogger. He also likes playing guitar, violin and regular workout in the gym. His blog is the 2nd top earning blog in India.

3# Blog Name: BlogsDNA.com  Editor in Chief: Sandip Dedhia

Alexa Traffic Rank = 34,749  Google PR = 5

Earnings / month = US$ 4600

This technology blog was founded in 2008 by 7 guys, leading by Sandip Dedhia. They usually write about technology, gadgets and latest news about technology. His blog is the 3rd top earning blog in India.

 4# Blog Name: NirmalTV.com  Founder: Nirmal Balachandran

Alexa Traffic Rank = 21,047  Google PR = 4

Earnings / month = US$ 4100

Nirmal started his blogging career in 2007. He is a Civil Engineer cum Software Engineer cum Professional Blogger. He is from the city of backwater Kochi, Kerala. Presently he lives in Mangalore. He blogs about technology, WordPress and blogging. His instructional/tutorial articles are quite helpful for newbie bloggers. His blog is the 4th top earning blog in India.

5# Blog Name: ShoutMeLoud.com  Founder: Harsh Agrawal

Alexa Traffic Rank = 7,339  Google PR = 4

Earnings / month = US$ 3200

Harsh Agrawal quits his job from IT firm Convergys and became a full time professional blogger in Sep 2008. He writes about blogging, WordPress, SEO and technology. Apart from blogging he offers plenty of blogging related services on ShoutMeLoud. Besides blogging he loves traveling. His blog is the 5th top earning blog in India.

6# Blog Name: AmitBhawani.com  Founder: Amit Bhawani

Alexa Traffic Rank = 20,133  Google PR = 4

Earnings / month = US$ 2800

Started his blogging career in 2007, Amit writes about blogging, SEO and technology. Recently he received the 2011 Best  Samsung Mob!lers Award at Seoul, Korea. He also runs an SEO firm in Hyderabad. His blog is the 6th top earning blog in India.

7# Blog Name: DevilsWorkshop.org  Founder: Rahul Banshal

Alexa Traffic Rank = 22,802  Google PR = 4

Earnings / month = US$ 1400

Rahul Bansal started DevilsWorkshop.org  in 2006. This blogs covers technology, social networking, gadgets and internet related articles. Mr. Aditya Kane and Mr. Sauravjit Singh are the two other writers for this successful blog. Mr Aditya Kane has written more than 1000 articles for this blog, single handedly alone. His blog is the 7th top earning blog in India.

8# Blog Name: Trak.in  Founder: Arun Prabhudesai

Alexa Traffic Rank = 13,607  Google PR = 5

Earnings / month = US$ 1200

Arun created his blog in 2007. He blogs about finance and technology. He is an avid internet geek and spends more than half of the day in front of the computer. His blog is the 8th top earning blog in India.

9# Blog Name: Blogsolute.com  Founder: Rohit Langde

Alexa Traffic Rank = 38,266  Google PR = 4

Earnings / month = US$ 800

Rohit Langde is the editor-in-chief and owner of Blogsolute.com. He is a Mechanical Engineer cum professional blogger. A technology enthusiast, usually blogs about software, internet, gaming and various tutorials about technology. His blog is the 9th top earning blog in India

10# Blog Name: 9Lessons.info  Founder: Srinivas Tamada

Alexa Traffic Rank =7,577  Google PR = 4

Earnings / month = US$ 750

Srinivas started blogging in 2009 and founded 9Lessons.info. He usually blogs about programming, social media and technology. His blog is the 10th top earning blog in India.

Utmost care has taken while compiling all the data available to produce a list of Top 10 earning Blogs and Bloggers in India. Suggestion are most welcome to make this list perfect.

Source : Top 10 Earning Blogs and Bloggers in India

Read More

How Facebook “Sponsored Results” Search Ads Aren’t Like AdWords At All

Search marketer ears likely perked up to hear that Facebook launched search advertising this week. But anyone who’s expecting it to be similar to AdWords or adCenter is going to be disappointed. Actually, it’s more akin to other forms of Facebook advertising, despite appearing in search results.
Consider these typical AdWords ads:

They appear above or to the right of search results. In contrast, the new Facebook Sponsored Results appear within the search box, as suggestions when you type:

Beyond placement, Facebook’s search ads can’t be targeted to keywords, as can Google’s ads, nor can they link to content outside of Facebook. The chart below summarizes some of the key differences:

Read More

The Financial Justification For Search Engine Optimization

Every business grows by delivering value through products and services that fill a need, solve a problem or lead to a desired goal. To achieve this, your business must first be visible online to your ideal prospects.
Enter SEO.
Search Engine Optimization helps with this ‘findability’ problem. SEO can ensure that your business ranks high on search engines, attracts the right customers, showcases your value, and boosts profits continuously.

No Business Can Ignore SEO

Your prospects use the Web to research purchases. When a health-conscious family makes decisions worth $10,000 over the next 5 years based on information from a Google search, you need to be ‘discovered’ by that family – and millions like them in your market.
I conceived the term ‘SEOnomics‘ to meld SEO with economics, a process of maximizing profits and generating big business successes through SEO. Effective SEO interweaves technical elements of website optimization with buyer psychology to match a company’s objectives to the online environment.
Before formulating your strategy, ask yourself these questions:

• Where are your customers on the Web?
• How can they be reached effectively?
• What is the least expensive way to impact them?
• Which areas can be leveraged for synergy?
• Which ‘tools’ are best? How to use them?

With a strategy harnessed to website architecture optimized for high search engine ranking, your business will be super effective in boosting sales and profits – if it has one more important element…

Understanding Visitor Intent

SEO can steer a business through rough economic seas, staying profitable despite recessions and downturns, if it is rooted in a deep understanding of visitor intent.
Knowing what your prospective customers want helps you deliver solutions they’ll happily purchase. SEO specialists get inside the mind of your typical customers, understand their desires, and craft a winning SEO strategy designed to capture their attention, nurture it into trust, and grow it into loyalty. Your prospect becomes a customer, then a repeat buyer, and ultimately a referrer and evangelist for your brand and business.
In this way, an intelligent SEO strategy will:

• boost sales and bottom-line profit
• reduce marketing expenses by enhancing effectiveness
• increase insight and understanding into your clientele’s needs
• leverage synergies with other marketing efforts.

SEO Targets ‘Low Hanging Fruit’ For Rapid Profitability

SEO is cost-effective in growing businesses. Many are content with a 2% sales conversion – or less. This means 98% of their marketing is wasteful! SEO can fix that by convincing non-buyers, targeting them at the point of sale.
According to Power Retail, 86% of in-store buyers conduct online searches before purchasing, and 80% rely on this information to make a decision. Even in B2B purchases, 52% of buyers surveyed admitted to researching purchases online. Effective SEO fills the needs of these website visitors and converts many into buyers.

SEO Is More Than A Traffic Machine – It’s A Conversion Crusher!

Tailoring your website to match what is in your prospect’s mind will speak straight to their deepest desires. Your SEO plan should target keywords, yet be powered by buyer psychology, understand buying cycles, and factor in the customer research process.
With this, you’ll skyrocket your sales conversion. Using powerful software tools to pick the right keywords is important. The transformative element, though, is tracking your customer’s behavior to learn what they want. This eliminates guesswork and can turbocharge your sales at low cost.

SEO Can Tell You Why Visitors Don’t Buy

SEO isn’t just about code – it’s about people.
If your business serves a huge market but your visitors aren’t buying, SEO can help you understand why – and show how to mirror their needs better. By creating laser focused landing pages which focus on the issues and problems your audience wants solved:

• You’ll get accurate estimates of what clients want
• You’ll identify what works better, and implement it to engage visitors
• You’ll attract better prospects, sell them more, can price offers higher, and get delighted buyers to refer new business

SEO Is Friendly On Your Marketing Budget

SEO is effective even in difficult economic times because of its longevity. No one pulls the plug on effective SEO. Your efforts can bring in a steady, growing return on a modest investment for many years to come.
We know SEO is great for cost-effective brand building. Smart brand managers use SEO to deliver online ads at just the right time to engender trust and plant a seed that grows into a money tree. The right SEO strategy can even help a business secure funding, find investors, or build recognition for companies planning an IPO.

SEO Can Future-Proof Your Business’ Profitability

Global mobile data traffic is set to explode exponentially in the near future, with projections suggesting 26 times growth over the next 5 years.
While attracting a crowd of new buyers is a goal for mobile search optimization, another is managing brand reputation and controlling PR disasters such as the recent Toyota Camry story that went viral on the Web.
Currently, 91% of all mobile Internet use is “social”. Optimizing your website on the basis of visitor intent can help you win this high stakes battle for a prospect’s mind.

Every Business Needs SEO

It’s important to recognize, SEO is not a cost, but an investment. An investment in the future of any business. A cost-effective marketing method with high return that extends infinitely. From a purely economic perspective, SEO delivers value for years to come.
In the ultimate analysis, SEO is less about mechanics and has more to do with economics.
It’s about getting more people to your website, convincing them to take action, and turning them into customers, repeat buyers and raving fans. Your profit grows, your brand gains strength and your marketing message resonates in the marketplace, rippling out to reach newer audiences.
Opinions expressed in the article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.

Read More

7 Tips For Crafting Local Business Updates In Facebook

Do you spit out status updates on Facebook for your local business without much thought? Carefully engineering your status updates can result in more effective targeting, better engagement with your audience, and improved EdgeRank to help more of your followers actually see your status updates.

These tips should be considered to be “spice”, rather than the meat in cooking up your Facebook contents. Use these tips with some restraint and balance or you could create fatigue for your followers, resulting in reduction of your audience engagement rather than growth of it.

Increasing engagement with your status updates can widen your reach by optimizing for Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm. Without EdgeRank, your status updates are less likely to be immediately visible to your followers via the Top Stories they will frequently see when they arrive on Facebook.

A basis of EdgeRank are the number of interactions your audience has with your postings. A status update which immediately draws a few “likes”, comments and shares will be given more ranking weight than a status update with no interactions.

Read on for 7 tips on optimizing your local status updates. Some of these tips could apply for national businesses as well as local business pages.

1.  Scheduling

Schedule posts to appear during “prime times” when more of your followers are likely to interact with them. Facebook now lets you schedule updates in advance, so you could write up a number of updates in advance.

Generally, there are a few times when more of your followers will be on Facebook and will see your status updates sooner. Experiment over time to figure out when the “sweet spots” are for your followers. There are indications that using Facebook’s native scheduler can improve EdgeRank, compared with external content scheduling apps.

Here’s how to do it, illustrated with status updates for a fictitious tea company:

Click the clock icon below the status update text box, then select the date parameters.

2.  Add Tags

I wrote about using tags to optimize Facebook status updates some time ago, and Facebook subsequently saw fit to dumb down the marketing advantages involved.

As a result, your tagged posts from your page are no longer visible on other pages. Even so, it can still be worthwhile as a feature to make your status updates more interactive and interesting for your audience. Increasing interactions with your audience is a primary goal, even if there’s no immediate payoff involved – tagged posts may increase clicks associated with the update.

Tagging subjects associated with Wikipedia article pages that are embedded in Facebook are one good option. It’s usually best to “Like” the page you wish totag, first, to help insure it’s presented to you as a choice when you’re ready. Then, use the “at-symbol”, (“@”), when you start to type the name to be tagged.

Tagging another business’s Facebook page in your status update might also result in them seeing your post, and choosing to “Share” it with their users – another EdgeRank indicator.

3.  Add A Location In Status Updates

There’s no clear advantage in terms of local search rankings within Facebook for doing this as of yet (Facebook’s search functionality still leaves much to be desired).

However, it can dress up an otherwise plain status update and provides yet more content with which to interact.

For a general status update, you click on the little “placemark” icon button below the text box. (Oddly, the icon is highly reminiscent of the location pinpoint icons in Google Maps. Hmm…)

For general status updates, you could use the city where your business is located as a sort of default location. Using the city will provide you with an attractive map and pinpoint icon.

Alternatively, perhaps use the name of your neighborhood or district. You can select your own store’s name as the location, but Facebook apparently decided it’s too recursive to display the map on your own page, so they chose to only provide the text link in the status update in such cases, similar to tagging a person or another page.

Tagging events in your area as locations is also viable — such as if you’re sponsoring a nearby charitable event, or if you’re telling your customers who might be participating to drop by when they’re going to be near.

4.  Target Specific Locations

This new feature is especially good for chain store companies that might be trying to promote multiple stores via a single, unified Facebook page. It allows your status update to only appear for users who are in a specific area.

For example, if my fictional tea company was just beginning to ship to a distributor in Boston, I could specify that the status update only appear for Bostonians.

To set this, click the icon below the status update text box which is likely defaulted to “Public”, then select Location / Language:

Then, the interface will allow you to target anywhere from a country to a state/province to a city.

5.  Target By Language

The same interface allows you to target a status update by language, too, which can be useful if you’d like to provide custom marketing to specific groups, such as Spanish-speaking customers here in Texas where I live.

6.  Add Pictures Or Photos

It nearly goes without saying that adding something with graphic interest to your status updates will grab more attention and will result in more Likes. Intersperse your updates with eye-candy, and your audience will be more likely to share, comment and like your posts.

7.  Emphasize Special Posts

You can especially emphasize an important post one of two ways: choosing to “highlight” a post will allow it to flow across both columns of the timeline:

Choosing to pin a status update to the top can allow you to make one post particularly “evergreen”, or can help you insure one important message is kept first and foremost for a period of time.

Irritatingly, it doesn’t appear that one can choose to make a status both highlighted and pinned to the top simultaneously.

As you can see, there are a number of things you can do to tweak your status updates. Engagement is the name of the game here — you don’t have to know precisely how much any given factor might influence your status updates’ EdgeRank in order to know that increasing the interactions with your audience will generally pay off.

Opinions expressed in the article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.

Source : www.searchenginland.com

Read More