By Internet Marketing Experts
Google has been allowing for web pages to be previewed before clicking on a search result for quite some time since 2010. Equally we have seen a number of changes taking place during 2011 in Local Business Listings from Google’s Places and Maps. These changes have include the removal of third party reviews, layout changes to what information is viewable and a strong focus on securing ratings and reviews.
Google Places results which provide local results before national results now received the instant preview feature too and are displayed on the first page of the search results. This is a new functionality that will further encourage and require businesses to take control of their Local Business Listings to insure local customers get the marketing information the business wishes to provide.
What is probably more important is has been enhanced with multiple layouts and provides the searcher more information than the organic results of general websites. You can hover over a Google Places listing and see everything from Maps to Videos, Photos and more in the right column. What is probably more surprising is that the ads are replaced with the preview information. The implications of the Adwords Ads being replaced with the preview information certainly has other implications that we will have to discuss separately.
The following information is provided by Google’s Instant help page:
- Before Google Instant, the typical searcher took more than 9 seconds to enter a search term, and we saw many examples of searches that took 30-90 seconds to type.
- Using Google Instant can save 2-5 seconds per search.
- If everyone uses Google Instant globally, we estimate this will save more than 3.5 billion seconds a day. That’s 11 hours saved every second.
- 15 new technologies contribute to Google Instant functionality.
Let’s take a look at the information included in the instant preview of Google Places Local Business Listing.
Map
While the general search results always show a map with all Google Places Local Business Listings, if you hover over a listing you will see only the listing you are hovering over. The map links to Google Maps where you can then obtain more details including directions.
Customer Ratings and Reviews
Recent studies have shown how 6 in 10 customers make their buying decisions based on what has been posted to the local business listings. Of course this goes well beyond Google and becomes equally important to insure satisfied customers have posted positive ratings and reviews while the business manages the process of tending to negative ratings and reviews too.
Images, Photos, Videos, Coupons, Offers, Promotions
This is where the marketing content a business provides within their Google Places Local Business Listings for their local store becomes very important. Whether it is products, services, advertisements, coupons, offers, discounts, etc. Taking the initiative to secure your local business listings by claiming them and then managing them with regularity.
Street View
Probably not as well known is the panoramic photo that is provided by Google for that businesses address. You can get a 360-degree view of the area by hovering over this panoramic photo. Some street view images have one for the interior while others only for the exterior. Eventually this will play into the integration of Google Places with Google Earth.
Web Page Preview
If Google can identify a web page for the business, the thumbnail of the business web page is displayed. This thumbnail appears to be a live snapshot and is directly linked to the web site. From a marketing perspective this the first impression a prospective customer will have with the business.
Additional Details Included
Prices, Hours of Operation, Public Transport, Reservations, Menus, Feedback to Google, Report a Problem, and links to additional third party ratings and review websites. Of course not everything here is applicable to all businesses and are displayed based on the information provided from the Google Places Business Management Console.
As you can imagine the instant preview gives user the ability to “view” without having to click and this will directly impact the number the click through rate (CTR) of any individual listing. Most likely the CTR will go down in this case.
With the ongoing changes by Google to the search results page along with the Google Places Local Business Listing, the industry continues to push hard for businesses to not only manage their local business listings, but to start focusing on store level marketing and store level reputation management (aka public relations). We can expect to see more changes and requiring businesses to add the appropriate policies and procedures to include this area as part of their web marketing strategies.
Certainly your time resources are limited and Geographic Marketing Solutions for multi-location companies are provided by Smartfinds Internet Marketing. Let the experts of over 17 years Internet marketing experience help you use this local business marketing tool properly through monthly management marketing services and broadcast data services for mass business data distribution.
Smartfinds Internet Marketing
330 East Maple Road #503, Birmingham, MI 48009
Toll-Free: (866) 501-5758
Fax: (866) 501-5758
http://www.smartfindsgeographicmarketing.com
By Internet Marketing Experts
Bill Hagen’s Out The Window Advertising partners with SmartFinds Internet Marketing to introduce businesses to the benefits and components of Geo-Marketing, including Geo-Listings, Mobile Marketing and Geo-Social Marketing
FLAGSTAFF, ARIZONA & DETROIT, MICHIGAN – July 28, 2010 (OUT THE WINDOW ADVERTISING | SMARTFINDS INTERNET MARKETING) – Out The Window Advertising (www.reachoutthewindow.com), a full service Arizona-based advertising agency, and SmartFinds Internet Marketing (www.smartfindsmarketing.com), a metropolitan Detroit-based agency which provides businesses with Internet marketing services and solutions, have recently partnered together to provide businesses with an opportunity to learn the many ways that Geo-Marketing can positively impact their bottom line.
The benefits and components of Geo-Marketing, include Local SEO, Geo-Listings, Mobile Marketing and Geo-Social Marketing. Geo-Marketing helps consumers to find local businesses, products or services through web searches, mobile searches and mobile applications. Geo-Listing Security, Consumer Reviews, and Reputation Management are additional components of the services offered.
“The partnership between Out The Window Advertising and SmartFinds Internet Marketing is an exciting opportunity to effectively introduce Geo-Marketing services to our clients,” commented Bill Hagen, President of Out The Window Advertising.
Most recently, Out The Window Advertising was ranked the 5th largest ad agency in Arizona by the Phoenix Business Journal. The team at Out The Window excels in the planning, development, placement, and creative execution of Television, Radio, Print, Direct Mail, e-commerce, social media and customer retention campaigns for over 90 clients nationwide.
Out The Window Advertising’s impressive client portfolio includes automotive dealerships. Commented agency President Bill Hagen, “Our car dealership clients are eagerly aware of the need for local marketing, local business marketing, and local dealership marketing.” Hagen added, “It’s interesting that the automotive industry relies on early adopters of automotive technology, and in the case of Geo-Marketing, car dealerships are themselves early adopters of Geo-Marketing technologies. The dealerships understand the importance of being found quickly by mobile and digital customers.”
SmartFinds Internet Marketing CEO, Melih Oztalay, stated “We are excited to partner with Bill Hagen and Out The Window Advertising in our effort to share the benefits of Geo-Marketing. We are currently working with Out The Window Advertising’s client base to claim and update local listings on behalf of 150+ car dealerships. Car dealerships are just one of many local businesses dependent upon local consumers for their revenue.”
Melih Oztalay has over fifteen years experience with Internet and digital services in developing strategies that utilize all facets of the World Wide Web. As a Internet marketing agency, SmartFinds Internet Marketing’s major focus is to develop multi-directional marketing campaigns to drive traffic to client web sites from more than just search engines.
Anyone interested in learning more about the ways in which businesses can use Geo-Marketing to be more easily located by local consumers may visit www.smartfindslocallisting.com. For more information about Out The Window Advertising, please visit www.reachoutthewindow.com.
About Out The Window Advertising
Out The Window Advertising was recently ranked the 5th largest ad agency in Arizona by the Phoenix Business Journal. The team at Out The Window excels in the planning, development, placement, and creative execution of Television, Radio, Print, Direct Mail, e-commerce, social media and customer retention campaigns for over 90 clients nationwide. For a true “one-stop shop,” Out The Window Advertising offers the use of their “In-House” production facility for all client projects. For more information about Out The Window Advertising, please visit www.reachoutthewindow.com.
About SmartFinds Internet Marketing
The most critical element of SmartFinds Internet Marketing services is the creativity and imagination to apply the technological aspects of the digital marketplace to the marketing objectives of a particular business. Initial research provides SmartFinds the ability to develop a digital strategy that can be measured every step of the way to insure business growth and revenue generation. Some of SmartFinds’ clients have included Delphi, Flagstar Bank, Guardian Industries, Soave Enterprises, Detroit Convention and Visitors Bureau, McCann Erickson, Wendy’s and others. You can learn more about SmartFinds at www.smartfindsmarketing.com.
Contact: Esther Lastacy, 330 E. Maple Road, Suite 503, Birmingham MI 48009, 866.501.5758, esther@smartfindsmarketing.com.
By Internet Marketing Experts
As the local business listings on the Internet become a bigger local marketing tool for businesses, it is inevitable for all businesses in the U.S. to ultimately engage in this process. The question that arise is why will all businesses pursue local business listings as part of their local business marketing.
Certainly the simple answer is that any business – large or small – that is dependent upon the local geography for their revenue will be or has already sought out traditional yellow page alternatives. The Interactive “yellow pages” of the Internet, aka local business listings, allow for updates within any 24 hour period allowing the business marketing to change as the business changes.
Local business listings will help promote a local business to local consumers through web searches, mobile searches and mobile applications.
Please view the presentation below to elaborate further on additional reasons by local business listings will be an important factor in local business marketing.
By teamsf
The Internet has turned into a great local business marketing tool in the past couple of years. While local businesses have not yet adopted these tools into their marketing strategies, the technologies are moving forward with or without them. The convergence of Search, Social Media and Mobile Marketing is bringing business information with products and services into the hands of the local consumers.
Having had Internet business experience for the past 16 years, I can tell you this is probably one of the few times where we can put all the local business marketing puzzle pieces together and see what marketing tools we have available over the next 2 – 3 years. Let’s review each one so we can see how they come together.
Local Business Listings
In short these are the interactive yellow pages of the Internet. Interactive because as a business owner you can update and manage these listings at search engines, social communities, 411 web sites, GPS/Mapping websites and basic business directories. They are also interactive because consumers can post their experience they had with your business, products or services. In order to get started you need to claim, update, monitor and manage these listings at multiple local listing websites. Don’t have the time resources? Don’t worry, there are companies that provide local business listing management services.
Local Business Listing Marketing vs. Data Services
As a business you will want to seek out companies that provide the marketing services. The companies provide basic data services only push your information out, but they do not help you protect your listing from being hijacked or for that matter manage your listings for marketing purposes with various types of content like coupons, events, QR codes, consumer reviews, coupons and citations. The marketing services have a higher cost to them than the data services, because the marketing services are more effective and do more for your business.
Consumer Reviews
This will be the first time that most local businesses dependent upon the local consumer for their revenue will need to manage their public relations. Consumer Reviews are not just about other consumers seeing the information, but too many negative reviews will adversely impact your website ranking position in search results. This is no longer about just consumers posting their frustrations to a website or blog, but directly into your local listing. As a business you will need to closely monitor these reviews and also begin to engage customers that have positive experiences to post their information as well.
Local Listing Coupons and Mobile Coupons
The Local business listing gives the business the opportunity of posting their coupons, offers, and discounts. They are then available for consumers to find through web searches and through their mobile devices. While this is not available through all local listing websites or available for free, this is in no uncertain terms the demise of the traditional coupons.
Events and Promotions
If you promote your business then you will want to use the Events promotion tool within Local Business Listings. You can include Specials, Events, New Products, General News, pretty much any alert you wish to make the local consumers aware of so they can find it through a web search or a mobile search.
QR Codes
These small square bar codes will allow you to program them for consumers to scan using their mobile devices. The code will then do whatever is programmed to them. For example, a coupon, discount, offer, event, website link. You can also use them on business cards, websites, traditional ads, store window, and much more.
Citations
This tends to add a level of complication for most businesses. If you’re familiar with the idea of inbound links, this is very similar only this time is not necessarily just about a link, but your company name, address, city, state, zip, phone and many other aspects that are related to what is known as HCards to include your longitude and latitude of your business address. Because this is a combination of marketing and technical expertise you may wish to get someone to help you with this item.
Hyperlocal
Websites that are hyperlocal give a local business the opportunity to highly target advertising and marketing geographically and demographically. While these websites are not as prominent for this purpose yet, this will change and needs to be planned for in 2011 and beyond.
Having had Internet business experience for the past 16 years, I can tell you that that geographic marketing is the direction of our immediate future. Hopefully I was able to portray to you some of the known components of local business marketing and how this local business marketing tool can be used to reach the local consumers.
Certainly your time resources are limited and Local Business Listing Management Services are provided by SmartFinds Internet Marketing. You will find this to be of great benefit to your time resources and the low cost service may eliminate your yellow page ad costs. Let the experts of over 16 years Internet marketing experience help you use this local business marketing tool properly and prevent brand security issues from occurring.
By teamsf
The number of service providers that are attempting to help the local business and the small business to get listed are on the rise as the Internet becomes more valuable to the local businesses. What is strange is that in most of these cases the business is already listed! If you have a phone number for your business you are already listed with the major search engines and the major websites that focus their attention on the local market.
The local listing websites can be broken down into four major categories that include with some examples:
* Search Engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask)
* Local Listing Communities (Yelp, Judy’s Book)
* 411 Websites (Yellow Pages, Yellow Book, Super Pages)
* GPS (Magellan)
Any one of these websites receives their original data from the phone companies and other public sources. After all, local listings have been on the web for a number of years. There really isn’t anything new about this.
Let’s put local listing services into perspective.
First and foremost, the service that you really need to focus on is setting up an account, claim your business listing, updating your local listing, and then maintaining your local business listing. This will allow you to update your listing with current contact information, products, services, website, coupons, photos, videos, and much more. This is not something a “get listed” service will perform for you. Of course it is best to claim and maintain your listing at multiple local listing websites. We will explain why shortly as the world is greater than Google in this case.
Once you have completed this process your listing is more likely to appear for the appropriate search results on search engines and provide the consumer with your information on their mobile searches too. Claiming your listing will insure that you will receive your QR Code that will benefit you to market to local consumers. Additionally, claiming your listing will help you better manage consumer reviews, which will become important for search engine rankings in the future.
Getting your business listed can provide you benefit by getting your information into secondary local listing website that are predominantly 411 websites. The benefit here is something called citations. In particular Google is looking to verify your business which happens by finding your business information through these other 411 websites. So, there is a benefit from these “get listed” services, however, do keep it in perspective as to how much it will really help your business market to the local consumers.
If you’re wondering why you need to manage multiple local listing websites, the answer is relatively simple. Your customers will choose which local listing website they post their review about their experience, your products and your services. This is probably the one area that Google will not be the 800 lb gorilla in the near future. Local listing communities have been on the Internet for quite some time and the consumers have been using them to post their comments.
This is another reason why getting listed services are not going to be helpful. Consumers have been posting their comments without the involvement in this process by the business they are writing about. Without claiming your business listing you will not be able to manage the consumer reviews, which will ultimately play a role with your website ranking position. Google’s failed attempt to acquire Yelp for $500 million during the 2009 holiday season is a good indication of the type of data Google is seeking out.
Getting listed services are not going to eliminate another individual or competitor from hijacking your listing. Local listing hijackings are a very real problem as there really is no good quality control. The search engines have attempted to make this process as secure as possible; however, there are always loop holes, particularly with 411 websites. If anything, getting listed services are more likely to cause confusion by adding duplicate listings and not having security checks to verify the business they are listing.
Duplicate listings are equally an issue with local business listings. Information about a business is coming from multiple directions to major search engines. This includes getting listed services, 411 websites, the business itself, and local listing communities. As this industry evolves over the next few years, this information will get cleaned up, but in the meantime it is important to focus on not adding to the turmoil of data.
Getting listed services are for the most part only running a computer program to distribute your information to a variety of sources. You are getting what you pay for from these low cost services. They have a role relative to increasing the awareness of your business at multiple locations in a short time. This information will aid you with citations as Google’s local listing algorithm is in effect.
If you want to use the local business listing as a local marketing tool to reach the local consumer, then you need a service that will have a progressive plan to help you manage these local listings and multiple local listing websites. This progressive plan includes setting up accounts, claiming your listing, updating your listing, and maintaining your listing. This will then be followed by consumer review management, citations, and QR codes.
Your time resources are limited and your expertise is with your business. This does not necessarily include the management of Internet marketing of your business. Local business listing management services are provided by SmartFinds Internet Marketing. You will find this to be of great benefit to your time resources and the low cost service may eliminate your yellow page ad costs. Let the experts of over 15 years Internet marketing experience help you use this local business marketing tool properly.
By teamsf
If your business is dependent upon the local consumer for revenue then you will need to start paying attention to your local business listing. You, also, need to know that paying attention to your local business listing is not about one location. There are over 60 different local listing websites and search engines in four different categories. Most allow the local consumer to post their experience about your business, products and services without your knowledge or involvement. While this has more importance for B2C companies, it does indeed apply to B2B companies as well.
One way of describing local business listings is to call them the interactive internet yellow pages. I say “interactive” because it is a two way street. Local business listings are a convergence of search, social media and mobile marketing. More importantly they have evolved to be an excellent marketing tool for the local business. Local business listings show up in search results on the first page and on mobile searches when the local consumer is around town.
Local businesses are defined as large local businesses, franchises, restaurants, banks, professional services, and small business. Pretty much any business that is dependent upon the local consumer for their revenue.
The business can do more with local listings then they ever could with the traditional yellow pages. Aside from the basic business information, you can add photos, videos, coupons, and events to showcase your business, your products and services. More importantly you can update them 24x7x365.
The consumer also is interactive in this case. They get to post their review of your business, their experience with you, your products and services. What is interesting is that the business does not have to be engaged in local business listings in order for consumers to post their reviews. Websites like Angie’s List, Yelp, Google, Yahoo, Bing, City Search and more are a good example how consumers have been very engaged in posting their commentary about a business (good or bad).
If you think that “getting listed” inexpensively is the solution then you need to reconsider what you know about local business listings. The trick is to claim your listing at multiple local listing websites in order to update them with your marketing material and manage them on a regular basis. It is estimated that less than 15% of all local business listings are claimed, therefore there is large number of local businesses that neglect this as a marketing tool and their reputation.
These local business listings represent your company’s brand and your customers feel about their experience with you. Isolated negative reviews are not to be taken lightly because your prospective customers that don’t know you and can only make a decision based on what they read. Any negative review will reduce the perception about your brand and consumers will think twice where to spend their money. These online reviews of your business are a powerful first impression of your brand credibility as well as a sense of security for new customers. They need to know they can trust you.
Consumers are tuning out the commercial messages that bombard them everywhere at all the times. Any opinion coming from another customer gives confidence with prospective customers. The opinion given from an existing customer with no economic interest helps to facilitate a foundation of trust.
If you’re wondering how a business utilizes this marketing tool effectively at all these locations with limited time resources, then the answer lies in local business listing management services that support the business to take care of this at multiple local listing websites. The only thing you have to be careful here is that most of the companies out there are about “getting listed”, which is not really what the business needs since most businesses, unless they are new, are already listed. What you need is someone who will help you setup an account, claim your listings, update, manage and maintain them for you.
Local business listing management services are provided by SmartFinds Internet Marketing. You will find this to be of great benefit to your time resources and the low cost service may eliminate your yellow page ad costs. Let the experts of over 15 years Internet marketing experience help you use this local business marketing tool properly.
By teamsf
(above pictures shows yellow box in the map and next to view website as action items for
local consumers in enhanced listings)
Local business listings have been around for some time and based on the direction the industry is going, this will be the next major wave on the Internet. If you’re wondering what Local Business Listings are, please take a look at some of our other blog posts on Local Business Listings. One thing we can tell you is the last thing you need is to “get listed”. If you have a phone number for your business you are already listed with the major search engines and the major websites that focus their attention on the local market.
Let’s talk more about new developments at Google regarding the local business listings. Google has made some changes to the local business listing with Google Maps by adding enhanced business listings. These enhanced listings will identify what you would like local customers to see. This may include a video, coupon, a link or anything else you find important.
Google has continually added new beta features in the last few months. They started off with local business listing adwords in the San Francisco area. That was then followed with QR Codes to a limited number of businesses nationally (100,000 to be exact). Now Google Enhanced listings are being offered in limited areas. Google will of course assess the results of these tests and then using feedback along with their measurements make decisions to implement the program to everyone.
Benefits of the enhanced listings include:
- You can easily and inexpensively highlight your listing on Google Maps and Google.com from the Local Business Center.
- Potential customers in your local area will see what you think is most important or unique about your business.
- You can track the effectiveness of your enhancement with your Local Business Center dashboard.
- You will be charged a low $25 flat monthly fee, with no bids and no keywords required.
If you’re wondering what type of information you can use to enhance your local business listing, then this may help:
- Website
- Photos
- Videos
- Coupons
- Menu
- Reservations
- Driving directions
Many of these options are already available as part of your standard listing, but they are not emphasized or highlighted in any way. Google’s enhanced listing will help to insure you promote what is most important to you to the local consumer.
Overall, this enhanced local marketing tool will continue to show up in all the same places it does today. The primary difference is what you see in the listings next to the map. You will be able to drop your enhanced listing fee with Google at anytime, which does give this service an inexpensive option to trial for a short period. Using Google’s Local Business Listing Center you can also monitor the search and click activity giving you a good idea how your enhanced listing is performing.
If you’re thinking that enhanced listings will change if you are ranked at the top of the list next to the maps or the bottom, then think again. You will still need to insure you are following all the Google policies and procedures, which a professional Internet marketing firm can help you with.
You can use local business listings as a local marketing tool to reach the local consumer and a professional service will have a progressive plan to help you manage these local listings and multiple local listing websites. This progressive plan includes setting up accounts, claiming your listing, updating your listing, and maintaining your listing. This will then be followed by consumer review management, citations, and QR codes and other technologies as they are made available to the business community.
Your time resources are limited and your expertise is with your business. This does not necessarily include the management of Internet marketing of your business. Local business listing management services are provided by SmartFinds Internet Marketing. You will find this to be of great benefit to your time resources and the low cost service may eliminate your yellow page ad costs. Let the experts of over 15 years Internet marketing experience help you use this local business marketing tool properly.
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By teamsf
Search Engines certainly are not able to make things too easy for the local business. I don’t blame them entirely, because spammers can get advantage of search engines very quickly and easily. Spammers and other fraudulent websites tend to be the terrorist of the Internet. Needless to say, the actions of a few tend to make it difficult for everyone else.
You would think that all you need to do is claim, update and manage your local listing with the search engine and other local listing websites. That certainly would be the easy thing to do, however, whether your local business listing will be ranked on search results or within other local business listing search results is dependent upon a few other factors.
The good news is that it is not as complicated as search engine optimization (SEO) and understanding the technical and non-technical intricacies of getting your website ranked organically within the top ten search results. There are five items on the to do list.
1. Claim your local business listing at the various local listing websites.
2. Update your local business listing with information about your business, product and services. Include photos, videos, coupons, discounts, offers, promotions.
3. Maintain and manage your local business listing regularly with changes within your business, products and services (If anyone thinks that this is not an issue today, they may be right, but you can bet this will be added soon enough).
4. Get customers to post reviews about your business, products and services on your local business listing. You can suggest they post their review at one or multiple local listing websites, however, the local consumer will ultimately be the one to decide which and how many of the local listing websites they are will to submit their reviews.
5. Get citations about your business around the web, outside of your local business listing.
The first four items I’m sure are easy enough to understand, however, the last one introduces a new terminology to “optimizing” your local business listing.
If you are familiar with the concept of link popularity and inbound links, then you will understand citations. The only difference is that there isn’t an actual link coming back to your local listing. Citations (may also be called “web references”) are publicly available “mentions” of your business name and address on other websites. This information helps search engines validate your business.
For example, Google will seek out a citation about your business on InfoUSA, Localeze, and Yelp to mention a few. You local chamber of commerce directory that they make available on their website with your business information would also count.
Citations help validate your business is part of a local community. It’s difficult to fake membership in a chamber of commerce, or a business index, or be written about in a local online newspaper or popular blog. Citations help your local business listing become ranked among other local listings in a search result.
Part of this process is to be sure your business name and address information is consistent from one website to another. After all we are talking about computers and computers need data to be exactly alike in order to identify the information to be the same. The consistency would need to include your business description, name, address, phone number, website, and email address. Get into the habit of keeping this information handy so that you can copy and paste easily enough from one website to another or from one directory to another.
If you feel that maintaining your local business listing is time consuming or outside of your expertise to manage at all the various local listing websites, there is help out there. As with most local and small businesses, your time resources are limited and your expertise does not lie in the management of Internet marketing of your business. For this reason low cost local listing management services are provided by SmartFinds Internet Marketing through their SmartFinds Local Listing service is your choice. You will find this to be of great benefit and the low cost will help you potentially eliminate your yellow page ad costs. Let the experts of 15 years Internet marketing experience help you.
By teamsf
“I have tried several times to edit my business local listing and it tells me Status Pending Review.”
“I’ve been trying to get my current address, phone number and website address updated in my local listing for months.”
“Recently, I have submitted my local business and had been waiting for my verification PIN. After 20 days I have received that PIN number, but my listing has been already verified by someone else.”
The above quotes are excerpts from postings at search engine local listing forums. Business owners are having difficulty updating their local business listings on their own. These are only a few examples of the problems business owners run into. Reviewing the forums of the major search engines, Google, Yahoo and Bing, you will find many more questions and frustrations.
Certainly the search engines have tried very hard to make this process as easy as possible, however, the individual tasks can appear to raise more questions to someone who is not familiar with the information or the process.
The issue tends to go beyond the obvious request to answer questions on the computer screen. Each question may raise further questions in the mind of the business owner. These silent questions begin to focus on the business brand, the message, the marketing strategy. Question like “Am I entering the right information?”, “Am I entering the information correctly?” are only a couple of the higher level questions that come to mind when someone starts to ask you questions about your local business.
The local business owner wants to maximize the limited time resources they have. If they spend time to work on this information, they will want to be sure it benefits them and they probably don’t want to come back to do this again. The anxiety of insuring the information they enter helps their business far outweighs the questions being asked by the search engine local listing.
An additional burden comes from having to perform this task on all the major search engines along with many non-search engine websites like Local.com and Yelp. By the time you look through the process you will find at least six major locations to update and maintain. We have identified 60 websites for which business will want to have their local listing managed. As you can see, the local business with limited time resources will not be able to keep up.
If you’re wondering why you want to have your local listing updated with six or more websites you’re not alone. The answer lies with iPhone, Blackberry and Palm. The mobile application developers for these phones will be the ones to decide which database of local listing they will use. Since any of these databases can be used, it only makes sense to have the local business listing information updated in as many locations as possible.
The strategy of how the information is entered is certainly an additional challenge. Knowing the keywords to use and how they should be entered is only the beginning. If you add coupons, offers, discounts, videos, photos, products and services, it will be necessary to know how to title, describe and tag the individual items. After all, you want your listing to show up at the top of the list of local listings for various search terms related to your business and also on mobile devices.
As part of the local search marketing strategy you will want to maintain your listings and manage them regularly. Our recommendation is once a week. Local listings that are not maintained will not be of any benefit to the local consumer and therefore they have no reason to click on your listing. You may have a new menu or products, an event at your business or store, or other news worthy items that will require the listing to be updated at all locations.
Lastly, we have to be concerned about customer reviews. Consumers have the ability to write their positive thoughts and negative emotions. This raises the notion that we want to encourage customers to write their positive thoughts and also insure we have a process in place to handle customers that are not satisfied to avoid having them post their negative emotions. Of course this is also a second reason why so many local listing websites need to be maintain. Ultimately, the consumer will be the one to decide where they post their positive or negative reviews.
Utilizing a professional service to manage your local listings is no different than retaining a professional service to manage the search engine optimization of your website. Because the process is simpler than website search engine optimization, the fee structure is significantly lower.
Let us close out with two questions:
1. Do you know about your local listing?
2. Have you considered updating your local listing?
Contact SmartFinds Internet Marketing’s Local Business Listing Management Service and let our team help you with your local search marketing.
By teamsf
If you do a search on “local business listing hijacking” you will find information related to situations in which a competitor hijacked another businesses local listing to their benefit. As of December 7, 2009, Smart Company wrote an article about hijacking prevention. In New Zealand a florist is facing 7 years for hijacking local listings of competitors.
This is a real situation that can and does have an impact upon a business that is not paying attention to their local business listings. If your business relies on the local consumer market for its primary revenue and you are not clear about local business listings, then you need to get caught up real quick.
For one thing local business listings are the demise of the traditional yellow pages. If the traditional yellow pages have not already seen their coffin and at minimum a door stop, then free local business listings are the nails in the coffin. Certainly you will find that you can save money in this space.
Local business listings give a local business the ability to not only have their general information available, but photos, videos, coupons, offers, discounts, promotions to name a few items. Additionally these can be updated 24x7x365. Certainly none of these are features of the traditional yellow pages.
The process gets even better. Not only do these listings show up on the first page of Google for a search result in which a local listing is appropriate, but they show up on mobile devices while local consumers are driving around town. Studies have shown that there is an increase in local search and local search via mobile applications on mobile devices. We won’t get into all that detail here, but you can certainly read one of our previous articles about the statistics.
As you can imagine local listings have been evolving in the past few years and so have mobile devices and mobile applications. Starting in 2010 the two industries are merging even closer.
Just in case you’re still not convinced that you need to pay attention to your local business listing, think about the consumers walking through your store and writing reviews about their experience, products or services. If they don’t like something they can twitter or write a review in any local listing website before they even make it back to the car.
These consumer reviews are very important because in part they determine your ranking amongst other local listing websites for a web search (vs. mobile search). They also have a tremendous value to the search engines, which is one of the reasons Google wanted to acquire Yelp recently.
So, let’s get back to the issue of local business listing hijackings. To prevent this process the first action is to claim your business listing at multiple local listing websites. Certainly Google Local Business Listing will be your first stop, followed by Yahoo, Bing, Local.com, Ask.com and Yelp. You will find that there are many more locations, this is only a start.
Aside from getting involved in local business listings around the web here are a couple of other items to consider. Always be sure to have consistent and as much detailed information about your business as possible, particularly your address. Be sure your information is consistent amongst all locations on the web including your website.
Claiming, updating and managing the ongoing updates and reviews to your local business listing can become a time consuming process. It may at some point require more time than your website. Certainly the local business listings can become your website too.
Because there are multiple locations that have to be updated you may need to consider a service that will help you maintain and manage your local listing at multiple local listing websites. When it comes to the web, Google may be the 800lb gorilla, but in the mobile marketing space, the mobile application developer will ultimately decide what database they will use. Furthermore, the local consumer will be the one to decide which local listing they will use to write their reviews. Therefore, for both of these reasons, you will want to manage your local listing at multiple local listing websites.
Waiting to consider your local business listing is not really an option. You will want to be an early adopter as quickly as possible.
SmartFinds Internet Marketing provides Local Business Listing Management Services and can not only help you claim your local business listing, but also, manage the ongoing maintenance at multiple local listing websites. Not only to help you update the listings with your information, but also with promotions, coupons, QR-Codes, offers, videos and photos.
