Best Free Local Business Directories

By: Tony Peters
Owner, AP Designs LLC
Inquiry@apdesignsonline.com


If you’re not in Free National and Local Business Directories right now, you’re missing out on some good Backlinks and potential business exposure. I’m not talking about Google Places, Yahoo Local, or LinkedIn. I’m talking about the next Tiers down from that. The Places you have only heard about only once, or maybe never.

Some of these Free Business Directories get their start as being Free. Then they get tons of traffic, and before you know it they charge monthly fees for any listing at all. And then their traffic plummets, just as fast as it came. Is their directory really that good?

The purpose of this article is to tell you. Which ones are still FREE. At least as of the date when this article was written.

I personally always like free things: Free tools, Free Advice, Free Coffee, and Free Listings. I’m sure you do too. Sometimes there can be a “catch” with free things, and sometimes… well, they’re just free. For instance, the Free knowledge we dish out on our page How SEO Works. And, this Blog. It’s all Free! OK. Enough. On to the Free Local Directory Listings.

Here are 10 Directories that you may not have ever known about:

1. Manta.com
   This one is solid. I am even signed up for their newsletter which gives me great FREE helpful business tips. They even have an app of the week for phone apps. I’d say I download about 30% of their suggested apps. Very helpful!.
2. Yelp.com
   You’ve probably seen commercials on TV for Yelp. It’s has grown very fast. They also have a great app for iPhone or Android. I just became a part of their community not too long ago. I highly recommend this Directory.
3. MerchantCircle.com
   I’ve been part of Merchant Circle for a while. It has provided me some decent backlinks to my website, and possibly a little exposure. Although I have never gotten a phone call which says “Hey, I found you on Merchant Circle!” it’s still a worthy investment of your time to make a business profile.
4. Local.com
   Local.com is a bit too heavy on the advertisements. It would be a much better interface if they would ease up a bit. Nonetheless, they provide another avenue for a listing and a backlink.
5. YellowPages.com
   I have always despised the “phone book” websites. A choice few call my cell phone a few times a year trying to get me to pay way too much money to be included in their phone book. I’m not sure about your phone book at home, but mine sits on the door step for 3 days until I finally decide I should bring it in. Then it sits for 5 years on a shelf, never used, until I do a complete home cleaning and the accumulated phone books finally get thrown away.
   Well, the phone book companies are FINALLY starting to catch on to this “internet stuff”. The Yellow Pages Directory is actually pretty decent. They also have an app, if you feel the need to download it. Although, be cautioned! You may get marketing phone calls.
6. BizJournals.com
   This Free listing is limited to being “shown” in one city for one specific industry. Of course you can upgrade your listing for a fee.
7. DiscoverOurTown.com
   This is a free listing, but has an expensive upgrade to a paid listing. I’d like to see their traffic reports for my region before dropping the extra cash they ask for the “premium” listing.
8. MojoPages.com
   MojoPages is Yellow Pages with a different name, look, and feel. You can get $50 in free advertising if you put an icon on your website for 1 month. Heck, I did it. It isn’t too intrusive.
9. CitySquares.com
   This one is super painless to signup for. Whereas other have a bunch of fields to input, this one cuts to the chase, and the listing is instant.
10. Hot Frog
    A Great directory which gets millions of visitors per year (self proclaimed). And, it’s Totally Free.

After you have create these free listings, try to log-in once a month and maintain the listing by whatever means they have. Some, you don’t have to do anything. Others want to to write a review every once in a while (MojoPages), which isn’t too bad especially if it’s true. Keep adding to your listing description or modify is as your company evolves. Hopefully after all your hard work (or your employee’s) you will see the dividends in one form or another.

There are other free directories out there. Share yours by adding a comment. Thanks for reading!

Google Algorithm Update - SSL Certificates to Impact Rankings

By: Tony Peters
Owner, AP Designs LLC

Inquiry@apdesignsonline.com

Google has announced on Aug 06 2014 that it has modified its search algorithm to give more authority to web sites which have SSL Certificates. This will negatively affect your search engine rankings if you do not have one. Why would Google do this? Well first we need to understand what an SSL Certificate is and what is does for a domain, company, and website. This will help you understand Google’s motive behind this change.

The acronym SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer. It is a security technology for providing an encrypted link between a server and a client- like a mail server and a mail client (like Outlook), or a web server and a browser (like Internet Explorer). SSL helps protect information from hackers and other eavesdroppers on the web by encrypting the information sent back and forth between the user and the client. Whereas without an SSL protocol information is sent in plain text format through the web. Never give out personal information on a website that does not have an SSL certificate, or one which is out of date.

An SSL Certificate is a digital file which attaches a cryptographic key to an organization’s specific details. To get the Certificate, the company must apply for one, giving it’s domain and other company info to a third party certificate authority. After the info and company is vetted by the certificate authority, the certificate is granted and installed on a server for a specific domain.

SSL Certificates also provide a dedicated ip address for the domain, which is helpful for SEO especially if the website is hosted on a shared server, which is very common. If you are on a shared server with a spam website and your ip address is shared, Google may associate your website with the spam website just due to the ip address, even though all of your content is separate.

There is a large debate in the SEO community just on this subject of dedicated ip addresses affecting Search Engine Rankings. My personal opinion is that having a dedicated ip address is a small piece of the pie in the grand scheme of things, but a piece nonetheless. Running the risk of NOT having a dedicated ip address for serious SEO campaigns is like having unencrypted customer data for a merchant website sent through the web. 9 times out of 10 it may be fine, but there is always a risk of vulnerability.

Now, why would Google make this change? Read this article “Google SSL algorithm change affects seo rankings”. Essentially they are trying to make the internet a more secure place- which makes total sense! Since so many people (including myself) follow Google and their every move, the number of SSL Certificate purchases is about to spike. Time to buy stock in a certificate authority!

How much does an SSL Certificate cost? Depending on where you purchase the SSL certificate, your hosting company and the hosting package you have, and your amount of participation in the process of getting it and setting it up, it may cost between $50 and $100 US dollars. Contact your web developer or your hosting company to inquire how to get an SSL Certificate.

Now, after is is installed how do you know if the SSL Certificate was installed correctly and is working? Well, there are a 2 good ways:

1. You will see a padlock icon to the left of the URL in the browser address bar.
2. Http will be changed to Https

Be sure to click the padlock icon to make sure it’s the real deal. It should give you site security details after you single or double click on it.

In summary, Google has modified its search algorithm to give more authority to web sites which have SSL Certificates in a continued attempt to make the internet more secure. If you don’t have one your website search engine rankings could be negatively affected. As with all SEO practices, there are no guarantees of ranking improvement or decline. Having said that, this change is pretty cut and dry compared to most other Google algorithm updates.

Do ip addresses affect SEO?

By: Tony Peters
Owner, AP Designs LLC
inquiry@apdesignsonline.com

Believe it or not ip address diversity makes a big impact on Search Engine Optimization (SEO).  Whether it's backlinks to your website from similar ip addresses or it's other websites on your same ip, we need to discuss what to watch out for and how to avoid these potential SEO issues.

Firstly, for those who are not familiar how ip addresses work with websites, let me explain.  Your website is located on a server somewhere.  If you use Host Gator, it may be in Texas.  If you use GoDaddy, it may be in Arizona.  Each server can host numerous websites, depending on the space dedicated to your hosting package.  Sometimes a shared server will host hundreds of websites.  This is considered a shared server, and it's what most websites use.

A shared server has a limited amount of ip addresses; sometimes just one depending on the configuration.  An ip address is similar to a residential address.  Each computer, tablet, phone, server, even routers will have their own ip addresses.  An ip address looks like this: 123.456.789.123 or 123.456.789.12.  A shared server that hosts multiple websites will have the same ip address.  For this reason, the domain name is then the unique identifier.

So, if your website doesn't have a unique ip address, it's easy for a search engine robot to think that the other websites on the same server could be related to each other.  This can be very bad for SEO for a few reasons: 1) Poor, malicious, or spam content on same server; 2) Link farming; 3) Previous or future poor content.  Let's expand on each one of these.

1) Poor, malicious, or spam content on same server.  Let's say your website coincidentally ends up on the same server as a "link farm" or other website which is dedicated to black hat SEO techniques, a known spyware or illegal download site, or even a pornography website.  Since your website is on the same shared server without a unique ip address, Google may think that your website is related to the aforementioned sites.  Since Google does not think highly of these websites, it could put you in the same category and downgrade your rankings accordingly. 

2) Link Farms on same server.  A link farm is a website that is dedicated to creating links to other websites in hopes to gain better search engine rankings.  Google is on to most of these blackhat websites, and has downgraded them drastically.  Do not ever be a part of or listed in these link farms.  Even if Google has not found them today, it's only a matter of time.  Similarly to the above, if a link farm is on the same server as your website, then your website could be affiliated.

3) Previous poor content on same server.  Even if you think you have vetted the host and server on which your website lives for bad content today, Google may have indexed a website with poor content months or years ago.  Even this could impact your SEO.  Also, it's more than possible that some time from now a bad website ends up on your same server, gets indexed by Google, gets flagged and downgraded, then affiliated to your website just because it was on the same ip address.  Ouch.  All that hard work on your SEO campaign gets wiped off the map.  Pretty bad, isn't it?  Therefore, if you are on a mission for high rankings in the search engines, don't fall victim to this.

So how do you avoid being on a server with bad content?  Well, the easiest and cheapest way is to purchase and install an SSL certificate on your website.  This will give you a dedicated ip address, just for you. I have done this for my website www.apdesignsonline.com to be sure my SEO is not negatively affected from this potential issue.  Depending on your budget and the size and resources your website requires, you could get a dedicated server.  But be warned, these are not cheap; they start at more than $100 per month.  Therefore, the SSL certificate is much more cost effective, usually only costing around $75 per year. 

So let's quickly recap.  Ip addresses DO affect SEO and search engine rankings.  If your website is on a shared server, it could be on the same server as another site that has poor, malicious, spam content, or a link farm.  Even if it's not today, the shared server could have hosted this content previously or in the future.  Since your website and the "bad" website have the same ip address, Google will affiliate them and downgrade you for being associated.  Therefore, having a dedicated ip address for your website, if you are serious about SEO and search engine rankings, by purchasing an SSL certificate is the best answer to avoid the pitfalls of shared servers.

If you learned anything new or enjoyed reading this, please share it for the benefit of others.  Thanks!