Thomson Local & Google Local Search
If your product or services is targeted at a particular locality, having it appear in Google local business result listing is very important to driving high quality targeted organic traffic to your site. Aside from the usual algorithm Google uses to rank what site is it displays before which, it displays about 6-7 local businesses right at the top of search engine result page, giving such businesses and significant exposure.
There are a number of ways to get your business listed in Google Local Business Result, one is to submit your site to Google places, a second one which most SEO seem to argue gives you better ranking in Google Local Business Result is to have you business listed on Thomson Local. This way is not unlike the way Google populates its own directory by importing DMOZ directory.
Google partnership with Thomson Local is an excellent way of verifying business’s locality and Thomson Local, a traditional business directory which is not particularly a highly sought after directory to have business listed in suddenly became “sexy” due to the fact that it is now a back door into Google Local listing.
For the aforementioned reason, this author bough several local Thomson Local directory listing to get some of his client’s site ranked better in their Locally Business Listing. No sooner did the listing appear in Thomson Local did the cold calling starts from various sources from Thomson competitor trying to persuade you to list on their directory also to energy companies wanting you to switch to them, this bring home some of the reasons many Internet business tends to avoid having their business listed in traditional print based directory.
Thomson Local may get your into Google Local Business Listing but it brings you a considerable number of unwanted calls as well.
