A Local Business’s Guide to Listings Management
With big-box stores and corporate competition, local businesses face an uphill battle. Having a strong online presence helps local businesses stay competitive and drive new customers in the door. And, a big part of building an online presence for a local business is managing local listings.
3 big reasons local listings management is important
#1. It helps you connect with consumers wherever they’re looking
From Facebook to Google, Top Rated Local® and beyond, people go to all kinds of places to find local businesses. Effective local listings management ensures that your business has a visible presence wherever people are looking.
It also ensures that no matter where a prospective customer finds you, the business information listed there (name, address, phone number, etc.) will be up to date and accurate.
#2. It boosts organic visibility
Search engines, like Google, want to provide users with the best possible search results. If Google sends a user to a business’s old address or an outdated phone number, it creates a bad customer experience.
That’s why search engines prioritize local businesses in the search results that have consistent business information, which is a key part of listings management.
#3. It’s a part of building a strong reputation
Most local listings sites aren’t just directories. They are review sites, where people can go to read feedback about your business from other customers before they decide to work with you.
Having an active presence on sites like these not only makes it possible for people to read and write reviews, but it also will help you stay in the know about any new reviews so you can respond to them right away.
Also, if someone tries to call your business and gets a wrong number or ends up visiting your old location, it doesn’t exactly paint the most professional picture of your business.
6 listings management tips for local businesses
#1. Identify the right listing sites
There are lots of local sites, directories and apps out there that your local business could be listed on. However, not all of them will be relevant to your industry, and of the ones that are relevant, not all of them are equally important.
It does you no good to establish a presence on a listing site your prospective customers aren’t using. Take some time to figure out which listing sites your customer base is using, and which ones are most relevant to your industry.
This will save you from having to do unnecessary work down the road.
#2. Optimize your listings
Having verified listings on the right local sites is just the first step. There are lots of other businesses on those sites, and you need to give people a reason to choose you.
Make your listing stand out by optimizing it. Write a professional description of your business and services, and include relevant keywords to improve your organic ranking. Add high-quality photos of your location and team.
Your listings are also great places to update consumers about things like holiday hours, COVID precautions, etc.
#3. Make sure your information is consistent
Like I mentioned previously, strong local listings management can help to improve your organic rankings on search engines. But, in order to accomplish this, your business information absolutely needs to be consistent.
Make sure that your address, for example, appears exactly the same way on every listing. That means that if you use “Dr” instead of “Drive,” you need to use “Dr” on every listing.
#4. Keep your listings up to date
Having a listing does you no good if the business information on it isn’t accurate. If you move, change your phone numbers or restrict your hours, make sure that you update each and every site your business is listed on.
If you don’t keep your listings updated, there’s very little point in having them to begin with. It will also hurt your organic rankings and online reputation.
#5. Ask for reviews
Business listings sites often double as review platforms. Consumers rely heavily on reviews about your business when weighing whether or not to work with you.
Having no reviews at all is almost as bad as having negative reviews. So whether you have a poor average star rating or very few reviews, you need to make getting reviews a focus for your business.
Luckily, most people are more than happy to write a review if you ask them to. The easiest way to ask is by sending a follow-up email after a sale or service and requesting feedback about their experience.
Not only do consumers want to read reviews, but reviews and average star ratings are also part of how algorithms rank listings.
#6. Get rid of duplicate listings
Duplicate listings happen for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes, you’ll find that your business already has a listing on a site, even if you didn’t set it up. Data modifications and spam also play a role in the creation of duplicate listings.
Whatever the reason for them, duplicate listings do your business no good. They can hurt your bottom line in terms of lost income and traffic, and they can also hurt your reputation.
Take the time to delete any duplicate listings for your business that exist.
Listing management is a key piece of the local marketing puzzle. But, when your business is listed on dozens of sites, directories and apps, it can be time-consuming and hard to update and manage all of those listings.
That’s where the Marketing 360® Listings app comes in. With it, you can update and manage your listings across more than 50 of the most popular sites, directories and apps in minutes. Plus, you can delete duplicate listings, optimize your listings and more — all from one place.
