LocalEze is one of the most important sites to list your business on if you want to rank well in Google’s local search results. I’d put it in the top 5. It’s important because it feeds your business info to a ton of other influential third-party sites, which in turn influence your Google local rankings.
All you need on LocalEze is a free listing (though in some situations a paid listing isn’t a bad investment).
Meanwhile, picking the right categories to list your business under is a make-or-break step – both on your Google+Local (formerly Google Places) page and on major third-party sites like LocalEze.
Essentially, it’s your chance to tell Google what search terms you most want to be found for. You don’t want to blow the opportunity.
But in order to select the right categories, you first have to find them on the list. This is very easy to do on many major sites (like Yelp).
However, LocalEze has 1742 categories to choose from. You’re required to choose one for your business – but no more than one.
They have an OK browse feature, but it can still take a while to find the right category, and it will take you forever if you first want to see all your options. I’ve also found that the system can be very slow (it tends to “crunch” a lot).
That’s why I’ve rounded up all 1742 business categories in the LocalEze directory and put them into one easy-to-search list.
Kind of like Mike Blumenthal’s ultra-handy Google category tool, it’s meant to save you a few minutes of frustration and help make sure you pick out the right categories for your business where it really counts.
More specifically, the LocalEze category list is meant to remedy the following problems / nuisances:
- You can only pick one category for your LocalEze listing (for reasons I don’t know). You want to make sure it’s the single-most relevant. It’s much easier to find the right one if you can see all your options at a glance.
- If you’re not sure which category to pick, you need to be able to browse a list easily. But isn’t not always quick or easy to browse through LocalEze interface.
- If you manage listings for several locations – whether you’re a business owner or a local SEO – you’ll probably get tired of searching around for the right category every time you create a listing.
This post would get huge and bloated like 1970’s-era Elvis if I tried to stuff 1742 categories into it. So – as you can see – I didn’t go that route.
You can view or download the LocalEze category list right now:
If you have any suggestions for how I can make the list more useful or just better in general, please leave a comment!
Awesome job, Phil! And I lol’ed so badly at your last but one sentence (the Elvis one).
Hey Nyagoslav,
Thanks for the feedback! Actually, a lot of credit goes to you for the idea: I’d still like to do an InfoGroup category list / tool, but – as you said in the comments on your latest post – I also think there are more LocalEze categories and that they can be harder to comb through.
AngiesList also begs for a category list / tool. I love how granular some of the categories are, but then again they don’t even seem to have a category for “Attorney” (!), so I think many people would like to be able to see what their options are.
Glad you got a kick out of that Elvis line…wanted to make some crack about 1742 cheeseburgers, but couldn’t figure out how 🙂
Phil, all credit goes to you no doubt. I’m wondering how you “scraped” these down from LocalEze? Did you use a tool, or did you do it manually?
Angieslist is a veeeery problematic site… It only allows for certain types of businesses to be listed, mostly service-based ones, but the health-line ones are weirdly added, as well as a number of others. It definitely begs for such a tool. I’d add BOTW to this list, too. It could be incredibly difficult to find some types of businesses there, as they have 4-5 levels of categories, and some are very non-intuitive.
Once again, thanks for the effort!
Hey Nyagoslav,
It actually wasn’t hard to grab all the categories. If you already have a LocalEze account and go to the “Add a listing” area OR if you don’t yet have an account and you just go through the “Sign up” steps for adding a new listing, you can get to the category-selection stage. Then if you go down the alphabetical list letter-by-letter, you can just copy the categories.
Took me maybe 5-10 minutes – but it’s not the kind of thing you want to bother with when you’re just trying to get a client’s listing up there. One mucks around with the categories in frustration for a few minutes in the name of “just getting it done” – and then inevitably has to do it again for the next client.
Yeah, that aspect of AngiesList is exactly why I bring it up. Good call on Local BOTW: their category-selection interface is absolutely awful – one of the most labyrinthine of all. Everything else is a breeze, though.
Thanks again for weighing in!
Phil:
Thanks for taking the time to put this together. This is going to be extremely helpful when working with my local clients. It would be cool to have lists like this for every directory that doesn’t have an easy to browse/scan list of categories so get to work, Phil:) Only kidding.
Travis
Hey Travis,
No problem! Glad you’ve found it handy; that’s what the list is for 🙂
I’m currently working on one for InfoGroup/ExpressUpdateUSA. Their category list is absolutely EPIC, though. It dwarfs this LocalEze one, although many of the categories aren’t for businesses that are “local.” It’s going to be a bit longer before I’m done with the ExpressUpdateUSA list, but I think you’ll like the finished product.
Seems Localeze is not offering the free basic listing anymore! Please correct me if i am wrong.
That would be a bummer! Where did you see that? As far as I know, they’re still free.
I got my account verified and tried and tried to a listing and it would not let me, without payment. I have written to them asking for clarification.. will keep you posted.
Sounds good!
Hey – with the help of Vijay, we’ve seemed to get word back from localeze that listings are, in fact, no longer free.
Just a (disheartening) FYI…
Hey Jabob,
Many thanks to you and Vijay! I think we’ve confirmed each other’s suspicions: I just posted on this a couple minutes ago: https://www.localvisibilitysystem.com/2013/04/17/rip-localeze-free-business-listings/
Does LocalEze accept businesses located in India?
I don’t think so, Prabu.