We aim to update our list of Australian business directories regularly, but recently it’s slipped our attention! This list was last updated in January 2022, so we’re now working on an update for January 2025.

Do you know how many Australian business directories online is your website listed in? Or why it matters? And how to list your site with minimum effort? This post is here to answer all those questions!

2 ways listing in Australian business directories helps your website

There are two advantages to listing your website.

1. You may get some business, or at least some leads and enquiries.
2. It helps your SEO. You get more links into your site. Google – and the other search engines – assess your site as more authoritative, more trusted, and more respected.

Make sure you’re in the right business directories

1. It makes sense to start with the directories which are most likely to drive traffic, enquiries and business.

There are relatively few of those, and they’re likely to be different for each business. There are some tips in the section below to help you find the ones for you.

2. What about listing in business directories to improve your SEO?

This is more complicated. There are a lot of directories, some of them not very user-friendly, which means you’re not likely to get actual business from them. How do you know which sites are worth adding for SEO alone?

Long answer – you check the domain rating of each site and start with the ones which have the highest domain rating. Those are the ones the search engines pay the most attention to. A link from a more highly rated site will score you more ‘SEO juice’.

Short answer – use our list in this post.

Top Australian Business Directories for SEO, updated list for 2022

The top 20 Australian business directories are listed below. If you want a longer list, we found 92 Australian business directories in total. We’ve made the entire list available as a free download.

What do those numbers mean?

• Moz is one of the top SEO companies in the world. Moz Domain Authority is a score they calculate for every website (on a 100-point scale) that predicts how well it will rank on search engines. The DA includes factors such as the number of links to your site; the number of domains linking to your site, how trustworthy your site seems and so on. More details here.
• Ahrefs is another well-known provider of web analytics services. It is generally considered to have the largest backlink database available. (Backlinks are links from other sites to yours.) The Ahrefs Domain Ranking (DR) is based on the number and quality of backlinks to a site. More details here.

A couple of other comments

• A directory listing will only improve your SEO if it includes a link to your website. Sometimes, that link is the difference between a free listing and a paid listing. Check carefully!
• We used to include Alexa rankings as well. Alexa is / was another service tracking site performance, but it is going out of service so we’ve removed this column.

Using business directories for online lead generation

Targeted online business directories are more likely to generate leads than some of those at the bottom of our long SEO list. They never hurt your SEO either!

Some directory options to consider which are not on our list above:

• Chambers of Commerce
• Your local council and other nearby councils
• Industry associations
• Industry-specific directories
• Location-specific directories. You may not have noticed, but https://manlyaustralia.com.au squeaked into the top 40 Australian business directories! That’s impressive for such a local site! There are many other such local directories, so try to find the ones for you.

How to find smaller, targeted directories

A simple way to do this is to use Google. Search for terms such as

• [industry/location keyword] directory
• [industry/location keyword] add business
• [industry/location keyword] business listing

So for example a lawyer in Bathurst might search for

• legal services directory
• central west directory
• central NSW directory
• legal services add business

…and so on. Be sure to check out every directory you find and assess its value before listing!

Which directories to list in and how to do it

We’d recommend starting at the top of this list and working down.  Most businesses can benefit from listing with major directories like YellowPages, WhitePages, TrueLocal and Whereis. Yelp is skewed towards food and entertainment for consumers, so may not work so well for everyone. And the Australian ‘subsites’ of global directory sites are likely to help with SEO, but not get you actual leads.

There are probably directories you haven’t heard of on this list. Make sure you check them out before you submit your business.

• You want a good fit. If a directory doesn’t have any entries in your industry sector, it’s probably not going to have many searches either.
• Check whether there are upfront or ongoing costs. ShopSeek charge you for a listing. Quotation sites often charge per quotation. Many directories offer a basic free listing plus fancier paid options. Paid options may help you get business leads as well as SEO benefit. Only you can decide.
• Remember, with ‘freemium’ site, you need to check whether the live link to your site is in the free option or the paid one.

There’s no need to list on every single directory. This is only one part of your off-page SEO. You may want to invest some time in other kinds of links to your site as well. (Comment on forums or on relevant blog posts. Write guest posts. Give testimonials to suppliers as long as they link to your site.) This will help keep your link profile balanced.

Do some preparation

As mentioned before, the directory submission process is very manual. Every directory has a slightly different process, but they’re collecting a lot of the same information, so it is possible to prepare. Here’s a checklist of what to do before you start submitting your business into relevant Australian business directories.

Here’s our preparation checklist:

• Decide on the exact name you will use. (For example, will you include the ‘Pty Ltd’?)
• Be sure you have consistent contact details. Consistent NAP (name, address, phone) information seems to lead to higher Google rankings.
  • For phone numbers, include an area code. Be consistent about the format. ’02’ is fine. ‘+61 2’ is fine. ‘+612’ is fine. But pick one and stick to it.
  • What about web address? Will you include a ‘www.’ or not?
  • For street addresses, decide whether you want to include a suite number, floor number etc.
• If you don’t have a tag line, consider preparing one, or at least thinking of a one-liner which describes what you do and who you do it for.
• Have your logo file ready to upload. Jpeg is the commonest format. You may need a couple of different sizes. You may also want a square version and a rectangular version since sites have different requirements.
• If it’s appropriate for your business, have some images you can upload to show what you do.
• Have your ABN handy too.
• You might want to use a different email address to use for all the submissions, so you won’t get clutter in your inbox and miss actual emails.
• Be aware you may also get sales calls from directories who want you to upgrade to a paid listing.

So that’s the scoop on the top Australian business directories. Now it’s up to you to put this research to use for your site and your business. Or if it’s all too hard and you simply don’t have the time, we could do it for you!

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