One of the greatest resources I believe in for local SEO is the online directory. Local search testing has been done and it supports the fact that the more geo citations you have, the more trust search engines will have in your site for local search results.

But with so many local directories and search engines, where do you start? And how do you prevent yourself from becoming spammy? Well, fortunately these directories, from Google Places (formerly Google Local) to Super Pages, all pull their data from a few business listing databases. Now, don’t get confused. The bigger sites like Google and Yahoo still maintain their own database, but they also utilize the sites below to round out their index. And luckily for all of us, the big databases like Super Media and Express Update USA allow you to update and add your submission FOR FREE. Can’t beat that.

Now, I’ve taken the liberty of doing all the research and condensing the data of “who shares what with whom” into the flowchart below.  Take a gander and save yourself some time!

And to make things even easier, here are links to the “Add Listing” pages for the above directories:

• Super Media
• Express Update USA
• Bing
• Dex
• Google
• City Grid Media
• Localeze
• Acxiom

Special thanks to localtype.com and Bruce Clay in creating this post.