These last few days I’ve been out of town on vacation, and have been using Google Maps to help me find my way around. Searching for grocery stores, coffee shops, and free wi-fi reminded me how important it is to list your business with Google Maps and Yahoo Local. In case you?re not familiar with those services, they?re the listings that come up at the top of normal organic search results next to the map.

Want to get on top of the organic search listings in a hurry? The secret is to register your business with Yahoo Local and Google Maps. As an added bonus, it’s 100% free.

So what exactly does it mean to have a local listing anyway? Let me show you. Search on Yahoo for ‚Portland Graphic Design.‘ When you use a metropolitan or regional name in your search, it knows you’re location-sensitive, and returns a list of the businesses in that area. It generates this list from its Yahoo Local database. Looking at the results for ‚Portland Graphic Design,‘ my company, Vanivo, appears as the second listing. The same thing happens on the Google search results page, and these links account for a large percentage of our website traffic for these keywords. As you can see, a free, easy-to-create listing is an excellent way to increase your customer base.

It’s a very simple process to get your business listed in these local directories:

How to use Google Maps to promote your business:

1. Search Google for „Google Maps Local Business Center“ and login or get a new Google username. 2. Follow the ‚Add a New Listing‘ link 3. Complete the form with as much company info as possible, and make certain to emphasize your target keywords for your business. 4. To make sure you gave them the correct information, Google will want to send you a letter with a confirmation pin to the address you provided, or will call you at your request and ask you to enter a verification pin. I recommend using the phone option if it is available, since it is much quicker than the postal mail method. 5. After you’ve verified your info, your listing should start appearing within a few hours or days. Ensure all your business info is accurate, and dress it up by uploading a graphic.

How to use Yahoo Local to promote your business:

1. This process is even more simple than Google Maps. Just navigate to local.yahoo.com and click ‚Add a Business‘ in the blue section at the bottom. 2. Complete your company information and click ’submit.‘ 3. Yahoo Local staff will receive your request and include it in their listings after they review it.

ESSENTIAL TIP: To get listed higher in Google/Yahoo Local Results, rent a mailbox in the downtown metro area where you are targeting, and use that as your address so you have a very central listing. We did this on accident, but found out it worked very much to our advantage to get listed higher.

So you’ve finished creating your listings, but now they blend in with all the others. You need them to stand out in a positive light from the rest of your competition. The only way to do this (besides a catchier title, which is hard because you’re limited to your business name and keywords) is to get reviews associated with your business. We asked some of our past clients if they would do us the favor and post a review of our business on Google Maps and Yahoo Local, and now we have a 5-star rating next to our name. This is invaluable credibility on the web.

Armed with this tutorial, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be bringing in lots of free, targeted traffic to your website in a matter of days or weeks. If you run into any problems or have comments, I’m always available by email: tony-at-vanivo-dot-com.