just discovered Yelp...any others im missing

[huggytree]

I just discovered Yelp today.....so I set up my business account

the coupon is a total rip off.....basically its a $95 gift from you by the time you pay the Yelp fee's.....I thought $40 something was kinda out of hand for giving out the coupon, but I guess that's how Yelp makes $$

I know about Yahoo business


any others that people would use to find a plumber????

[Wozcreative]

homestars.com is actually one torontonians use a lot to find contractors/construction/cleaners/plumbers/painters etc.
I find "yelp" to be more for restaurants.

[patrickprecisione]

Citisearch, Yellowpages, Super Pages, Manta, Hotfrog. I actually get the most referral traffic from Manta.

[DeniseTaylor]

What about Angieslist.com? I've never used them, but they advertise a lot, so it came to mind.

[huggytree]

Citisearch, Yellowpages, Super Pages, Manta, Hotfrog. I actually get the most referral traffic from Manta.

THANKS!....I was not on any of them.....now I am....and I notice ALL my competition is already there....so its something I should have done years ago

I assume everyone uses Google only....im wrong

[huggytree]

im going everywhere and adding my business to search engines...a few hours later im going back and Im still not coming up on searches....the maps skip me

does it take a few days to get your info up on the searches?

Yahoo and Manta are the only 2 that came up right away.....I was already there to some degree though, so all I had to do was tweak things a bit

on YP,Super pages, home stars & Bing I show up under my account, but not under a general search like I should

[MasBro]

Yeah, there are hundreds of them, perhaps thousands. Manta is good. So are the others mentioned above. What you want to do , is focus on those that show gold stars in search results when customers rate your business. Then promote these pages in search. Soon, you'll have several profiles showing on the first page of search results with five gold stars next to your business name. You become the obvious choice for consumers when you do this. Directories that have gold stars? That I know of are Yelp, Google Places, Citysearch, Insider Pages (Hotfrog and Yellowbot don't allow reviews that I know of), Angie's List (though consumers have to pay to use Angie's List - it's free for you). There are others. See where your competitors are listed. Google Places is a must.

@huggytree, yes it takes a while if you're referring to getting in Gooogle Maps. Keep working on them and Google will find you.

Another good technique is to search for directories and review sites in your specific niche or community. Urbanspoon, for example, is for restaurants. Get listed in those. As a new business, I would focus on a few at a time and get customers to leave reviews for you in them. then once you have a handful you could move on to others.

Finally, speaking of Yelp, I just created a product that helps business owners use Yelp to drive more business. The link is in my signature and though the product is completed, the membership site isn't quite worked out yet. Should be ready in a few days. Developers are hard at work.

Regards,
Dino

[Twhansbury]

SinglePlatform It will help you very much
it allows you to reach everyone on all services at once

Online Listings for Business | SinglePlatform (http://www.singleplatform.com/)

[Broland]

These are good ones for plumbers:
Find Great Remodeling Contractors. Home Improvement Begins with Buildzoom. (http://www.buildzoom.com)
Home Services Engine - Your Local Home Services Business Directory & Search Engine (http://www.homeservicesengine.com)
Fixr.com (http://www.fixr.com)
Thumbtack - A new way to hire local services (http://www.thumbtack.com)

Then you should also check this list here:
Top 100+ Free Sites To List Your Business - Local SEO Citations (http://www.directorybug.com/top100)

[Vaira]

im going everywhere and adding my business to search engines...a few hours later im going back and Im still not coming up on searches....the maps skip me

does it take a few days to get your info up on the searches?

Yahoo and Manta are the only 2 that came up right away.....I was already there to some degree though, so all I had to do was tweak things a bit

on YP,Super pages, home stars & Bing I show up under my account, but not under a general search like I should

Yes, it takes time for them to review your business and then even some more time for Google to catch up with the changes. Btw, are you registered in Google Places?

[Robert Stafford]

As far as I know, yelp is the most highly trafficked. I'd suggest saving your time and only using them.

[Travis Van Slooten]

I'm kind of late to the party on this thread so the original poster probably has all the advice they need right now, but for others reading this for the first time, a great tool to use is White Spark's tool. Since I'm new here, I don't know if I can leave links or not, but here is a link to it:
https://www.whitespark.ca/local-citation-finder

You can do a search for free but they block out most of the info so to get the full results you need to pay. They charge $20/month but you can go month-to-month so you can run a bunch of searches in the first month, grab all the data, and then cancel. What the tool does is find the citation sources (i.e. directories) that are most beneficial to your business and location. It will uncover all the usual big players like Yelp, CitySearch, etc. but it also finds all those industry and local niche directories. It's a great tool. I have no association with the company either so please don't take this as a shameless promotion. It's just a tool I've found incredibly helpful.

Travis