Getting your business listed in a local directory is a great way to increase your visibility online and strengthen your business. A local directory is a compendium of businesses that makes it easier for people looking for product and services to get one. It’s a directory website that increases the chances of listed businesses to be seen by local searchers. This can be an alternative to a business website if you have a low budget and the good news is that all of them are free.

This article is about the most common business directories and how to get started. If you would want me to make a special post on any one of them, just comment below with the business listing of interest. The business listing directory with the highest comment will be my next post.

This is the most common and biggest business directory in the world. Though it has the audience of the whole world, it’s also streamlined locally to your search. So when you type let’s say “mechanic shop”,  the result shown will be the closest mechanic workshop near you.

Ok, enough talking, let’s do some practical exercises;

    1. Follow this link and search for any business. For the purpose of uniformity and maintenance of the flow of thought, we would use our previous example
    2. Search for mechanic workshop

Once your search returns, you will see something like this

showing you mechanic workshops close to you. Depending on your location, most of the shops are within a radius of less than 5km.

You can open any of the options that the search results, you will see something like this

showing you a particular business with its details.

Depending on which of the businesses you open, you will discover that all you need to know about that mechanic workshop are in the information log. For my search shown above, many of the business details like phone number, working hours, website etc., have not yet been added. This is because the business owner has not yet claimed this business and this is because he/she doesn’t know that such an opportunity.

So it is possible that your business has already been enlisted by Google but you are not aware. All you need to do to claim it is to search for what you do (If you have a physical shop) and if you can find it, go ahead and claim the directory as yours by filling in the necessary details and customizing it as you want. But if you cannot find your business on the directory, you can go on and create one and it’s absolutely free.

Even with a low budget, you can see that your business can still gain traction online and the interesting thing is that you can do that all for free. If you would like me to write on this business listing and how to maximize it, comment below.

This is a platform built and maintained by Facebook to help businesses to grow bigger and strengthen brands. With over 2 billion people on Facebook, you are sure to find people who are interested in your business if you know what to do and again, this is absolutely free but if you want to gain prominence faster or get conversions, you may need to promote your page so that more people can see it.

You can also publish your local business or brand on Facebook pages to get some good reviews from your customers, this boosts the confidence of intending buyers and these reviews appear at the high sidebar of Google search.

This is a platform that helps Small and Medium Businesses to grow. This platform pulls skills and professionals together from many African countries and to find any business of choice, all you have to do is to search for it and a myriad of options will be shown you to choose from with all the details you need to know like physical location, contact, opening and closing hours, customer’s reviews and experiences.

You can register your business to start expanding your horizon all for free.

Just like Vconnects, business lists provides a platform where businesses local to a country can be registered and find customers who need what they do. Business list has a rich database for virtually any type of work and they have a way of checking scam by been explicit between those that they have verified and those that they have not verified.

Listing your business on Business List website will give you the online presence and visibility you need to attract more customers online. The platform is completely free and you don’t need to pay any money to get listed.

This is a platform that pulls professionals from all over the globe that are doing different things. Fiverr is not really a local business listing as it were but a hotspot for freelancer workers. Unfortunately, Fiverr is mostly for soft skill businesses, that is to say, that most works in Fiverr is done and delivered over the internet and so if you are providing a physical product, this may not be the place for you. But I assure you, Fiverr is a great platform for people with soft skills. If you can, go on and register now!

This makes it easy to search and connect with local businesses and place. Whether you are looking for a shoemaker near you, or a dressmaker or any other business, ConnectNigeria is a good option to go with. It is designed to cater for Nigerian markets by making it easier to find local businesses in Nigeria.

ConnectNigeria’s mission is to organize Nigeria’s information, making it easy to find and easy to use. If you want to get some free publicity for your new business, ConnectNigeria is the right place to be.

This is a website directory that helps businesses find customers easily. Finelib works in all the areas local customers search which includes online, mobile and more. The company’s goal is to develop and grow Nigeria local content in a wide variety of topics. This is also free.

We have gone over 7 business listing platforms and website; all of them are completely free. These businesses were set up to help start-ups, small and even large organizations get a better grip of their local environment. So, if you are a business owner and you would like to increase your visibility in the digital space, jump right in and take advantage of this opportunity.

If you have any questions or you would like me to talk more on any of them comment in the box below. The business listing platform that get the most comment will be my next post.