- Owner
- Listings lead
- Cadence
- Quarterly sweep
- Time box
- Half a day
- Output
- Directory register with every listing's state
Why directories carry weight
When an assistant answers a local question, it looks for outside confirmation that a business is what it says. Yelp pages and industry directories are some of the most common places it finds that confirmation, and Perplexity's numbered citations show how often a Yelp list or a specialist directory sits behind a local recommendation. Bay Area AEO's listing cleanup covers Google, Bing, Apple Maps and Yelp, and it adds the industry directories each niche depends on.
Yelp
Claim the page through Yelp for Business, which is free. Correct the name, address, phone, hours, categories and website against the fact sheet, and fill the specialties section in plain words that match the services list. Add current photos. Yelp's own guidelines ask businesses not to solicit Yelp reviews, so the review process for Yelp is to reply to every review, keep the page complete and point review requests at Google.
Industry directories by niche
Each niche has two or three directories that assistants treat as authoritative. The niche pages Bay Area AEO publishes name them. For dentists the provider credential signal reads: "Dentist bios with schooling, specialties, memberships and languages, consistent with Healthgrades, Zocdoc and state license records." For law firms the directory signal reads: "Complete, accurate profiles on Avvo, Justia, Martindale-Hubbell and similar directories." Restaurants use OpenTable or Resy alongside Google and Yelp; contractors are checked against the state license board. Pick the directories for the business's niche from the niche signal worksheet.
| Directory | URL of the listing | Claimed? | Fields that differ from the fact sheet | Fixed on |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yelp | ☐ | |||
| Niche directory 1 | ☐ | |||
| Niche directory 2 | ☐ | |||
| Chamber or association listing | ☐ | |||
| Stray copy found by phone search | ☐ |
Procedure
- Search the phone number
Search the business's phone number in quotes, then each old number. Every page that shows the business is a listing to record.
- Fill the register
One row per listing, with what differs from the fact sheet.
- Fix Yelp first
Claim, correct and complete the Yelp page.
- Fix the niche directories
Claim and complete the two or three directories for the niche, including credentials and license numbers where the directory has a field for them.
- Work the stray copies
For small directories that copied old data, use their edit or removal forms. Record the request date.
- Recheck the phone search
A month later, search again and update the register.
CHANGE LOG ENTRY
Write one line per edit, in this order: date, platform, field, old value, new value, who made the change, and the fact sheet version it follows. Example: 2026-11-14 · Yelp · Specialties · blank · water heater replacement, sewer line inspection · listings lead · fact sheet v3
Setting priority when the list is long
A phone search can turn up dozens of listings. Rank them by whether assistants cite them. The audit capture sheet lists every source each assistant cited; any directory on that list goes to the top. Next come the niche directories, then Yelp if it has not already been done, then everything else. Small directories that nobody cites can wait for the quarterly sweep.
Done when
What the niche directories look like in practice
For a Palo Alto dental practice, the register would include Healthgrades and Zocdoc, each with a profile per dentist whose schooling, specialties and languages match the practice's own bio pages and the state license record. For a Walnut Creek family law firm it would include Avvo, Justia and Martindale-Hubbell, each listing bar admission and practice areas in the same words as the firm's practice-area pages. For a Hayward plumber it would include the state contractor license lookup, whose record the license number on every listing must match. For a San Mateo restaurant it would include the reservation platform, where hours, price range and cuisine must match Google and Yelp.
How stray copies spread
Small directories often copy their data from larger ones or from data providers, so an old phone number can sit in dozens of places that nobody at the business ever visited. Fixing the larger sources first means the smaller copies tend to correct themselves at their next refresh. That is the reason the procedure fixes cited and niche directories before the long tail.
Replying on Yelp
Because Yelp discourages review requests, replies are the part of the Yelp page the owner controls. Reply publicly to reviews that describe a specific service, thanking the customer and restating the service in a sentence. Use private messages for disputes. A Yelp page with steady, specific replies gives every platform that reads Yelp, Apple Maps included, a clear account of what the business does.
Keeping the register current
The register is the long-term memory of the listings work. Each quarterly sweep adds new rows for listings that appeared, marks fixed rows with the date, and flags rows that reverted. Over a year it shows which directories hold their corrections and which keep drifting, and that tells the listings lead where to look first after any change to the fact sheet.