Internet Yellow Pages (IYP)

The IYP hold value for a local business. People may not go directly to the Internet Yellow Pages to look for a business, but an IYP listing can come up in a Google search, especially for long tail keywords. Searchers that are deciding between one business and another will look for as much information as possible. An IYP listing is one additional piece of online real estate that you can get noticed by. The listing includes the most important information for business.

An internet yellow page (IYP) listing also helps for SEO link building purposes because it is an established and trusted site. Local links may not be as important for a large national corporation, but for a small local business they are necessary to get. Listings in local directories, like the Internet Yellow Pages, tell the search engines (and searchers) where you are located and establish the relevance of your business in relation to geographical areas. For a small business that has a new website or just launched a website, it’s important to obtain links from these directories during the first phase of link building.

Additionally, internet yellow pages are a great place for companies targeting a local audience to get great coverage. For instance, if a business has multiple offices or locations, why not simply list them in the major internet yellow pages (and even local search engine places) such as: YellowPages.com, Superpages, Local.com, Yelp, Merchant Circle, Yellow Book, Whitepages, Mapquest, 411.com, etc. If you are questioning if these internet yellow pages should be part of your SEO program, then start with the big ones first (Google Places, Yahoo! Local, Bing Local) and then branch out to these niche and smaller internet yellow pages.

Another key point to remember about the internet yellow pages is that in many cases they are so aged that  profile(s) will rank in the search engines on their own for various long tail keywords. That said, it is very important to naturally incorporate your major relevant local keyword within the description and fill our each listing completely and include: description, hours, payments accepted, accurate categories, photos, videos, logo, etc. This will help ensure your listing at a particular internet yellow page website stands out and is positioned well within the category.