Top 11 UK Business Directories
“This one goes to Eleven!”
Listing your business in one of the top online business directories can help you find and land new customers.
To help you with this “quick win”, I have put together a list of the Top 11 UK Business Directories that you can list your business on, today.
Why You Should List Your Business In An Online Directory
One of the hardest things that you, as a small business owner may struggle with, is creating and maintaining an online presence. You already have a million and one things to do, this is just another item on your ever-growing “to-do list”.
That said, there is something that you can do that will give you a big return on your investment both in the short and long term.
You will have to put a bit of effort into it upfront. Then, it’s a case of “set it and forget it”.
Registering your business with the top online directories, either in your local area and country. Or related to the industry that you are in. Will help you find more new customers and indirectly influence how you rank in search engines such as Google and Bing.
People will be able to find your business through the directory. But being listed on these types of sites positively impacts how people find your website through popular search engines.
When a popular, trusted website (a directory) links to another website (your business). The sites are deems as having a good SEO “relationship”. Having your website linked to from a “higher ranked” website, helps your website move up these rankings too.
Which Ones To List On?
It isn’t a case of listing in every directory you can find. It can take time to create a listing. So you need to make sure the business directories you do list on will have the potential to start sending you new customers.
To help you get started. I’ve compiled a list of the best business directories in the United Kingdom. Along with direct links to the submit pages, to make listing your business that little bit easier.
Of the top 11, there are some free local directories and some paid, with each directory being chosen due to its Domain Authority score.
The Domain Authority score is used by many to rate how “valuable” they deem a website to be. These websites appear higher up in search results as they are more trusted. Meaning search engines think that the information on a website will be of interest to the person searching.
Google has been using this as a ranking factor since 2014 and has been steadily increasing its warnings.
Domain Authority? What’s That?
I’m not going to try to explain what that is. I’m going to leave that an amazing SEO expert, Neil Patel.
Here is Neil Patel explaining about Domain Authority. He quickly describes it as
“Domain authority (DA) refers to the number of relevant backlinks — links to your website from other reputable sites — your site has. The relevance of those backlinks also contributes to your score.”
Tips For Listing In Local Business Directories
Here are a few tips for when your are listing your business in the relevant online business directories.
- Select the most appropriate category for your business. Are your main competitors listed in one particular category? It will make sense to also be listed alongside them.
- Make sure you complete as much of the business listing as possible. Contact information, great photos, case studies, and client testimonials (if the directory allows you to enter this sort of information). It will help you stand out above the crowd.
- When entering information such as your name, address, phone number, etc. It needs to match the information listed on your website and your Google My Business Listing. Google and Bing are very clever at linking all this information together, which can help with your websites domain authority rankings
- If you are listing on a local business directory and you operate in multiple locations, make sure you link to the relevant location page on your website, for example, /Manchester/.
- Don’t just copy and paste from your ‘about us’ page. Google will recognize this and it could affect your ranking. Make sure the description in your listing is unique to that particular directory. Both the online business directory and search engines will like you for it.
- Have a way of tracking which directories you have listed your business on. I have used a spreadsheet in the past, another good way to keep track of your listings, is to use a note-taking tool. I personally love Evernote.
- Also, you want to keep track of your logins to each site. I wouldn’t recommend a spreadsheet or note-taking app for this. Use an online password manager, LastPass is my go-to app of choice. However, they are getting rid of their free version so it may be worth having a look at an alternative.
The 11 Best UK Business Directories
“Finally” I hear you scream!
Based on the Domain Authority metric from Neil Patel’s amazing tool Ubersuggest. Here is the list of the United Kingdom’s Top Online Directories. Last updated on the 12th March 2021
Yelp
yelp.co.uk — Domain Authority: 75
What They Say
“Yelp connects people with great local businesses.”
Create a Yelp listing for your business
Yell
www.yell.com — Domain Authority: 74
What They Say
“Yell.com is the UK’s leading online business directory. Our website was launched in the UK in 1996 by the publishers of the Yellow Pages directory. Since then, we have put the names, addresses and telephone numbers of over 2.9 million businesses¹ at your fingertips.
Search over 3,000 classifications for companies matching the type of business you need, or find the right business near you by searching for a company name. Our service covers the whole of the UK (except the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands).”
Create a Yell listing for your business
192.com
www.192.com — Domain Authority: 66
What They Say
“192.com is the UK’s most awarded online directory, helping find people, businesses and places for millions of users every month.
192.com lists more people and businesses than any other website and gives you much more information on every listing, including phone numbers, addresses, property prices, shop front photos, detailed aerial photography and much more!”
Create a 192.com listing for your business
All In London
allinlondon.co.uk — Domain Authority: 61
What They Say
“We are a London-focused website acting as a junction for the information from London creatives, content creators, event organisers and businesses to intercept with an inquisitive, receptive digital audience. We support London businesses by democratising innovative digital marketing products allowing them them to grow their enterprises by connecting with their target audience. We are an online destination for a young, aspirational audience eager to discover more about London’s best bits. All In London was launched in 2003 and still run by the three core founding members.”
Create a All In London listing for your business
Cylex UK
cylex-uk.co.uk — Domain Authority: 60
What They Say
“Having more than a decade of experience on the international market, CYLEX operates over 30 online business directories, visited by more than 1 million unique users daily, reaching out to 5 continents and millions of customers worldwide. CYLEX took on the challenge of providing fast and simple ways in which our users can find the right service anywhere. The companies registered in our online business directory are actually promoting and showcasing their business to potential customers in a simple but appealing way.”
Create a Cylex UK listing for your business
TheBestOfUK
thebestof.co.uk — Domain Authority: 57
What They Say
“thebestof supports and promotes recommended local businesses to help them get found and get noticed within their local community.”
Create a thebestof listing for your business
FreeIndex
freeindex.co.uk — Domain Authority: 56
What They Say
“FreeIndex makes it easy to find, select and make contact with fantastic local businesses in the UK.
With well over 1.5 million registered members, FreeIndex not only allows you to read local business reviews and browse detailed business profiles, but also allows you to get quotes for whatever you need. It’s free to use, and as our name suggests, it’s FREE for businesses to advertise.”
Create a FreeIndex listing for your business
Scoot
scoot.co.uk — Domain Authority: 54
What They Say
“Scoot and Touch Local operate the largest online only business directory network in the UK, with over 400 websites
Our network drives new business to small local businesses every second of every day and we have over 600,000 members benefiting from this, with 4,000 to 6,000 new businesses joining each month.
The company has also been listed within the Tech Track 100 for two consecutive years.”
Create a Scoot listing for your business
Europages
www.europages.co.uk — Domain Authority: 51
What They Say
“EUROPAGES is the major B2B sourcing engine in Europe. Europages helps entrepreneurs and professionals gain visibility and qualified business contacts. A highly targeted audience of small and medium sized company professionals. It gives free access to over 3M suppliers from 45 countries.
Finding suppliers on Europages.com is an easy task for buyers thanks to a multilingual search engine, advanced indexing techniques and a precise and methodical classification system of 26 business sectors. Europages.com is available in 26 languages with visitors from more than 200 countries.
Create a Europages listing for your business
Thomson Local
www.thomsonlocal.com — Domain Authority: 50
What They Say
“Hercules the grizzly bear went on the run for 24 days to avoid starring in a Kleenex TV advert, a comedian named Russell Howard popped into the world and a little company called Thomson Directories Ltd was born.
One year later and the Thomson Local Business Directory was already finding its way into over 22 million homes and businesses throughout the UK.
Fast forward to present day and Thomson Local is a fully digital business directory and marketing service business, connecting millions of customers with local businesses each and every month.”
Create a Thomson Local listing for your business
Hotfrog UK
hotfrog.co.uk — Domain Authority: 47
What They Say
“Hotfrog was developed in Australia and launched in late 2005. Since then, the directory now covers 40 countries and is growing rapidly in countries like India, Spain, Germany, France. Hotfrog now has over 70 million listings in 17 different languages.
The use of categories makes HotFrog a true people’s directory. HotFrog allows businesses to classify themselves by creating and editing their own tags with keywords associated with their business.
Moboom pursued a range of partnerships with various directories over 2015. It zeroed in on Hotfrog as its main target due to the directory’s wide global presence. Moboom then acquired 100% of the directory in November 2016. Moboom recognised the value was in the data given the company’s unique ability to leverage content.”
Create a Hotfrog listing for your business
Bonus Online Business Directories
I’ve found another two business directories that have a domain authority of over 40, which is pretty good.
To help you out, and if you aren’t fed up of creating your listings, here are another two you can register with.
TouchLocal
touchlocal.com — Domain Authority: 47
What They Say
“Our network drives new business to small local businesses every second of every day and we have over 600,000 members benefiting from this, with 4,000 to 6,000 new businesses joining each month.
The company has also been listed within the Tech Track 100 for two consecutive years.”
Create a TouchLocal listing for your business
MisterWhat
misterwhat.co.uk — Domain Authority: 42
What They Say
“Founded in 2009, MisterWhat is currently available in 13 countries, and is used by more than 7 million unique users monthly”
Create a MisterWhat listing for your business
Conclusion
Here at Elementary Analytics, we know how hard it is to get people to your website and be able to monitor your stats and bring in new customers.
Listing your small business in an online directory, at a local or national level is a smart things to do.
It is time-consuming to create your listings, making it hard to find the time for you or a member of your team to do it and do it properly.
However, the benefits can be huge, providing a stream of customers, not only within a few days, but long term.
These directories will directly send potential business your way on a consistent basis. If the number of people that use their site is increasing. It also means the number of people you can potentially reach increases too.
When these directories link back to your site they help you climb up the search engine rankings as well. So more and more people will be coming across your site on a day-to-day basis.
I hope you have found this post useful? Thanks for reading.
Oh, just one more thing.
If there are any other directories that you think should be on the list, let me know and I will get this post updated.
You can read the original post here: https://elementaryanalytics.com/top-11-uk-business-directories/
