Once your business has a phone number, the calls start. “Sir, we are calling from a business listing portal. Your free listing is live, and for a small yearly fee we can put you in the top results.” Abroad it arrives as an email offering “submission to 300 directories”. Meanwhile you find listings for your business on sites you have never heard of, some with the wrong number.
So which directories actually matter? Fewer than the sellers suggest, but more than none. This post is about telling the useful ones from the noise, and keeping the ones you choose under control.
The kinds of directory you will come across
Not all listings do the same job. It helps to sort them before deciding anything.
General directories
These cover every kind of business in a city or country. In India the familiar names are Justdial and Sulekha, and IndiaMART for businesses that sell to other businesses. In the US and parts of Europe it is Yelp; in the UK, Yell. People do search these directly, especially for trades, repairs and services, and their pages often appear when someone searches your business name.
Industry and professional directories
Many professions have a body or a trade association that lists members: an institute of chartered accountants, a bar council, a medical or dental association, an architects’ council, a travel agents’ association. Some industries also have well-known booking or comparison sites, such as those for restaurants, hotels, clinics or wedding services. A listing here tells customers you are a real practitioner in that field, which a general directory cannot.
Local chambers and community groups
A chamber of commerce, a traders’ association, a market committee or a residents’ association website. These rarely bring large numbers of visitors, but the people who do arrive are local and often ready to buy. They also connect you to other businesses that refer work.
The big map and platform listings
Google Business Profile, Apple Maps, Bing Places and your Facebook page work like directories too, and they come first. If your Google profile is wrong, no directory listing will make up for it. Our guide to getting local customers online explains how these pieces fit together.
How to judge whether a listing is worth having
You do not need a tool for this. Three questions do most of the work.
- Do real people use it? Search for your type of business and your town, the way a customer would. If a directory shows up on the first page, people are landing there. If you only ever hear of it from its own sales calls, it probably is not worth much.
- Is it relevant to what you do? A wedding photographer belongs on a wedding planning site and a general city directory. A listing on a site for car parts suppliers does nothing for them, however “free” it is.
- Can you keep it accurate? A listing you can claim, log in to and edit is worth far more than one you cannot. If the site lets anyone change your details, or never answers correction requests, treat it as something to watch, not something to invest in.
It also helps to look at the listing itself. Does it show reviews? Are those reviews from real-looking customers, or the same few lines repeated? Does the page have your phone number, or a number belonging to the directory that forwards calls and sells your enquiry to competitors? Some directories do pass leads to several businesses at once, so it is worth knowing how yours works before you rely on it.
Paid packages and “directory submission” offers
Many general directories have a free basic listing and paid plans on top. A paid plan can be reasonable if you have checked that the directory brings real enquiries in your category and the terms are clear. Ask what you actually get, how leads are delivered, whether the enquiries go only to you, and how you cancel. Get it in writing. If the salesperson will not answer plainly, that is your answer.
Be far more cautious with offers to list you on dozens or hundreds of sites at once. These usually mean thin, low-quality directories that exist to sell listings, not to send visitors. Google’s spam policies describe link schemes, including buying links to manipulate rankings, as something that can hurt a site rather than help it. At best these packages do nothing. At worst they scatter half-filled copies of your details across the web that you will never be able to correct.
A few warning signs:
- A promise of a “first page” or “top position” result in Google
- A fixed number of listings or “backlinks” as the main selling point
- Pressure to pay today, or a “renewal” invoice for something you never ordered
- No way to see or edit the listings after they are made
A short list beats a long one
For most small businesses, a sensible set looks something like this:
- Google Business Profile, Apple Maps and Bing Places, claimed and correct
- Your social pages, with matching details
- The one or two general directories that appear when people search for your kind of business in your area
- Your professional body or trade association, if you belong to one
- One or two industry sites that customers in your field genuinely use
- Your local chamber or business association, if you are a member
That might be ten listings, not a hundred. Ten you can keep accurate are worth more than a hundred you have forgotten.
Managing logins without losing them
A common problem with directory listings is not the listing itself. It is that nobody remembers who created it. A former employee set it up with their personal email. A web designer claimed it years ago. A relative used their own phone number for verification.
Fix this once and it stays fixed:
- Use one business email address for every listing, ideally one on your own domain rather than someone’s personal inbox.
- Keep the logins in a password manager or a protected shared document, along with the listing’s web address and the phone number used to verify it.
- Where a site allows more than one manager, add a second trusted person so you are never locked out.
- When a staff member or agency leaves, check which listings they controlled and change the access.
If you find a listing you cannot access, most directories have a “claim this business” or “is this your business?” option. It may need a call or a code sent to the listed number. If the listed number is an old one, contact the directory’s support and ask them to correct it, and keep a note of when you asked.
Where a directory has two listings for you, ask it to merge or remove the extra rather than leaving both. The same reasoning applies on Google, which we cover in our post on duplicate Google Business Profile listings.
Keep every listing saying the same thing
Whatever directories you settle on, they should all show the same business name, address and phone number as your website and Google profile. Mismatched details confuse customers and make it harder for search engines to be sure which details are right.
The simplest method is a master record: one document with your exact name, address format, main phone number, website and hours. Every listing is copied from it, and when something changes you update the record first, then work through your list. Our post on name, address and phone consistency walks through the audit step by step, including how to find listings you did not know existed.
Once a year, or after any change of number or address, spend half an hour opening each listing on your list. Check the details and reply to any new reviews.
What not to worry about
You will never control every page that mentions you. Small scraper sites copy business details from each other, and some never update. If a minor site nobody visits shows an old number, note it and move on. Spend your time on the listings real customers see.
If you would like help deciding which listings are worth keeping, claiming the ones that matter and cleaning up the rest, that is part of our local SEO service. We will tell you plainly which directories are worth your time and which are not.
Next in this series: Moving Premises: Updating Google, Your Website and Listings
