I like Lisa Barone. I have yet to read anything from her that is not thorough, incisive and helpful. She does not contribute to the Internet cesspool. Unfortunately, Lisa has one fault… she’s American.

Perhaps I should state that better… Lisa writes as an American and is probably not particularly aware of how handicapped the rest of the world is when trying to compete on the web. When it comes to having an online presence, it is very difficult to not be American.

A perfect example of this is demonstrated in Lisa’s excellent article,  Small Business SEO: How to Launch That Web Site. This article is a great list of recommended resources for optimizing your site for local search listing, if you have an American business!

For those of us north of the 49th, about 2/3rds of those resources are inaccessible and of no use. So sad. What is a Canadian site to do? I recommend you go read Lisa’s article, and then come back here for my amended list of resources.

Back so soon?

Good. First, I’d reiterate the on-site localization advice – use your home page, about page, press page and contact area to inform visitors where you are located (and reassure search engines that you are a local enterprise).

Google local

https://www.google.com/local/add/login

Still a good bet for Canadians, or anyone anywhere in the world! Their “Country” drop-down menu seems all-inclusive.

Yahoo local

http://ca.dir.yahoo.com/

It’s almost as though Yahoo! really does not want us to find their free service, they make it such a pain to find it. Anyways, it exists. Go to the above address, locate the itty-bitty “Suggest a Site” in the footer of the page and DON’T click it – it’s a pointless link. Instead, use their directory to navigate to the listings area where you’d like to see your site. Take time over this to be certain that the directory you choose is the most appropriate to your business; it’s hell to get your directory changed at a later date (I know, I’ve had to do it).

Once you find your target directory then you need to make use of the “Suggest a Site” link to the far right of the page search box. This time, it’s a good click.

A final note – if you go through their 4-step process and clicking “Submit” results in a generic and uninformative “Your submission request was not accepted. Consult our guidelines and try again.” message, don’t let it bother you too much. There’s really very little you can do. Thanks Yahoo!, we love you too.

Third party directories

This is where the list differs substantially from that of my circumstantial muse, Lisa. Also, I am following her theme of listing “on a dime”, so the list below represents only free listings, and is in descending order of value (IMHO)

http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/ccc-rec.nsf/eng/home Government of Canada business listings directory. 3-5 days to be reviewed & listed. Tip: have your basic business information (operating name, company description, activity description) available to provide in French as well if you can operate in that language. Open to American firms who do business in Canada!
http://www.canpages.ca/ 2-day approval time frame
http://www.411.ca/ Option to hide operating address, 2-day approval time frame. They will call you to verify your information (and try to upsell your account). Recession promotion – free 90-day advertising account!
http://www.genieknows.com/ Up to 1 month for approval.
http://www.localsites.ca/
http://www.shopincanada.com/
http://www.directorym.ca/ Still relatively low traffic, but seems to be gaining well.
http://www.yelp.ca/ No where near as popular as its American counterpart, but could be useful if a listing here is appropriate for you (mostly service industry listings).

Also, don’t forget to look out for business directories serving your community (think local BBB, Chamber of Commerce or your city’s web site)… you can’t get much more local profiled than that!

Anything else?

As for a Canadian Best of the Web or GetListed… so sorry.  *hmmm, perhaps there’s a business opportunity here*

Finally, Lisa left her article audience with a nice tip to an additional small business resource, so I would be remiss were I to do any less. Businesses just starting out, and even those who have a few years under their belts might benefit from a visit to the government’s Canada Business Services for Entrepreneurs site. Especially nice are the segmented listing of resources (i.e. sources of mentoring, funding, investment & capital) for small business.