2. Search Engine Directories: Search Google Directory, http://directory.google.com for your city name and look for a category that ends with "Guides and Directories". When you click on that, you'll see the directories listed by importance, as determined by Google's Page Rank feature (you'll need to download Google's toolbar to see this info. The toolbar can be found at http://toolbar.google.com. The higher the rank (10 is high), the more traffic the site has. Or, you can manually search Google as follows: Regional Directories (by continent/country): http://www.google.com/Top/Regional/ By state in the US: http://www.google.com/Top/Regional/North_America/United_States/

You can also search Yahoo Directories, http://dir.yahoo.com. To suggest your business for inclusion, see Yahoo's guidelines here: http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/dir/suggest/index.html Yahoo's regional directory listing can be found here: http://dir.yahoo.com/Regional/ and listing for the US states is found here: http://dir.yahoo.com/Regional/U_S__States/

3. Yellow Pages Sites: There are a number of bigger city options here: YellowPages.com (SBC and BellSouth): http://www.yellowpages.com/guide/cityguides/ Super Pages (Verizon): http://www.superpages.com

4. Nationally-Based City Guides: The largest of these services, CitySearch, http://www.citysearch.com/, drives content to many other city guides. Other city guides include AOL CityGuide, http://www.digitalcity.com, Area Guides, http://www.areaguides.net, Online City Guide, www.onlinecityguide.com, and Associated Cities, http://www.associatedcities.com/

5. Newspaper-Based Local Sites: If you live in a larger urban area, your local newspaper may sponsor a site for your city, like Charlotte.com, sponsored by the Charlotte Observer) or Boston.com, sponsored by the Boston Globe.

6. Locally-Based City Guides: Again, in larger urban areas, your local chamber of commerce, convention and visitor's bureau, or a private business may operate a local portal for your city. Here in Southeast Texas, our locally based site is SoutheastTexas.com, owned by a private business. Others, like FortWorth.org, is sponsored by the Ft. Worth Convention and Visitor's Bureau.

7. Association Guides: Your membership to your local chamber of commerce, convention and visitor's bureau, professional association (by industry), general business groups (networking groups, men's or women's business associations, civic groups) may pay off if the association has an online membership directory where your listing might be found. Make sure that the listing includes both your contact info and a link to your website.

I've only scratched the surface of the local possibilities available for both virtual and brick-and-mortal companies. In doing the research for this article, I discovered there are thousands of businesses who aren't listed in these directories. Don't let yours be one of them. Get your business listed locally so you local customers can find you!

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