In their humble beginnings, web directories aggregated businesses into one convenient online location so that the general public wouldn’t need to slog through search engines or guess at a web address to find the business they needed. Twenty-five years ago, plugging in “coffee shops in my town” might have returned coffee shops in any town. Web directories, particularly local directories, could cut through these weeds.

Eventually, search engines got better at recognizing users’ true intentions, while some directories became less reliable. Even reputable websites such as Yelp and Angie’s List found their direct traffic being bypassed — instead of typing in the sites’ basic URL, consumers would run an internet search on “coffee shops” or “plumbers” and maybe get the directory high up on a search engine result page (SERP).

In this way, the linking benefits for individual businesses became less important, but the local SEO stakes shot far higher. When a potential customer searches for a random business, ideally, your client comes up early — if not directly, then at least through a directory result. Therefore, web directories, as antiquated as they in some ways seem, still matter in initiating or reinitiating people on a buying journey with a business. The following tips can help maximize the local SEO that such directories produce.