For this week’s Yodle Tipster, we’ll be discussing online business directories and how to know where you should list your business. Listing your business website with directories is a solid advertising tactic. Basic listings often give you a free (or nearly free) way to drive traffic to your website. Search engines are more likely to find your site and give it an individual organic listing on their results page if you have your business site placed on a number of directories. But there are scores and scores of directories out there. Getting listed can end up being a never-ending time suck if you’re not careful. So how do you decide which ones to approach, and how do you approach them?

Finding the best directories for your business usually comes down to how you want to be found. This list clarifies the various directory options you have available.

Internet Yellow Pages (IYP): These online versions of the print mainstays you grew up with have inherent brand recognition among consumers, which can translate into significant customer traffic. People think of IYP’s as easy places to look up stuff, like with the paper versions. IYP’s often provide city guides and are starting to offer extras like user-generated content, including reviews and ratings. The most prominent IYP’s are:

• Superpages.com
• Yellowpages.com
• Yellowbook.com
• DexKnows

Local directories: They provide deep local content across a broad array of local business categories – as opposed to listing just restaurants or just building contractors. They often use reviews and ratings to help consumers wade through the listings they publish. Local directories are very similar to IYP’s, but without the familiar phone book heritage. Still, local directories are plenty successful, and they include the following sites:

• Citysearch with extensive reviews on local businesses. Owned by IAC, who also runs a number of other online properties such as the search engine Ask.com and lead aggregator ServiceMagic.com.
• MerchantCircle: a network of local business owners nationwide that combines social networking features with customizable web listings.
• Yelp: Relies heavily on extensive ratings and reviews to help people find great local businesses.
• Local.com: An easy way to find local businesses via features like top searches, local favorites, and local coupons.
• Kudzu: Designed to help searchers save time by featuring buying advice, buyer’s guides deals, discounts, and more.

Vertical directories: These contain site listings for specific business categories, like dentists, lawyers, spas, etc. Users who like vertical directories already have their desired category in mind, and their search is largely a matter of geography. They ask, “Which well-ranked businesses (in terms of ratings, if the directory includes them) are the most conveniently located?” Examples of vertical directories are:

• 1800Denist: Enables searches to find a nearby dentist by entering a zip code.
• Urbanspoon: A popular local restaurant site.
• Doctors.WebMD: Helps searchers find doctors by specialty or location.

Getting listed on directories is pretty straightforward. You submit your site to a directory and provide basic company information for a profile. Make sure this profile is an easy to read description of exactly what your business does. For example, state that you’re the top in your market area of the longest-established business. You have to be fairly concise because directories don’t give you all that much room to state your case. Then again, you have as much room as your competitors, so the playing field’s pretty even.