Late last week Advice Local launched a new listing management product called Local Verticals. The product looks to help doctors, lawyers, accountants, financial advisors, home service providers and others show up on niche, category specific sites, and improve the search engine ranking of these businesses as well.

Advice Local’s niche citation services were originally just for exclusive partnerships with resellers, but the product is now publically available to agencies, brands and SMBs.

The product is built on a series of partnerships with sites such as Avvo (legal), Healthgrades (healthcare), Restaurants.com, Serviz (home services), Accountant Finder (financial) and a variety of others. The idea behind the product is to make it easier businesses to get listed on prominent category specific sites.

As to how the company decided upon which niche sites to work with, Justin Liles, chief product officer at Advice Local, said that they “run each source through an extensive 23-point quality assurance test to ensure only the best niche directory sites are part of our service.”

Niche citations may also help businesses rank better in search results than citations from general sources. According to Advice Local, “niche citations strengthen the association between the business and the business category.”

The press release discussed the recent YP study that highlighted the fragmentation of local search starting points and the complex consumer path to purchase, specifically citing the 15% of local searches that start on vertical specific sites. The data was used to reinforce the need for the Local Verticals product and the press release goes on to highlight the importance of these niche sites in influencing consumer actions.

“We have made it our mission to empower business owners to, not only take control of their data, but make it easy for consumers to find their businesses,” said Advice Local CEO Bernadette Coleman.