Reasons to Take Control of Your Local Online Directory Listings
Reasons to Take Control of Your Local Online Directory Listings
The Biggest Reason to Take Control of Your Local Online Directory Listings: Reputation Management
Local small businesses are finding ways to solve their online marketing problems. More and more of them are recognizing the shift from phone books to digital listings. It is clearer everyday that your new customers are looking online for your services and not in the phone book.
Imagine this, you own an automotive repair business. Your auto repair business is just down the street from a auto dealer that also does repairs. Enter in your new potential 25 year old customer that would not know what a phone book is if it hit him upside the head. When he needs something the first place he goes is to Google.com.
Now, your potential customer searches for an auto repair shop in your town and is delivered 7 results in the Google Local Maps section right at the top of the page. Hmmm. They look pretty good. Some have a little blue link that says "more info" and some have a link that say "14 reviews". Which one do you think he is going to click on?
I will put my money on the one with 14 reviews. Okay, that's great but what if when he gets to that local places listing those 14 reviews are all horrible? Most likely he will hit the back arrow and look further.
What if the reviews are good? He will probably call that auto repair business and make an appointment.
Do you know if your business will show up in these types of results? If it does, do you know what it will look like? Will it have reviews or will it look bare with hardly no information other than an out dated phone number?
If your business has been established for awhile in your local town it is likely already listed in several local directories. It is also most likely already listed in Google Places yet lies there "unclaimed".
If you would like to increase your exposure online in local searches it is imperative to get listed in many of the relevant directories. But, one critical step in that process that many business owners are not aware of still is that of claiming and verifying your listing. Anyone can list your business but only the business owner or designated representative of the business should claim and verify the listing.
Claiming and verifying your listing allows you to update it with great images, comprehensive descriptions, and even videos in some cases. This is all very rich content and information that will appear in search results when your customers start looking. That is as long as you optimize all of it to the maximum extent.
When you claim your listings you are then able to check it for accuracy regarding contact information, address, and phone numbers. There is also always a place to list your website URL. The benefit to this is that your accurate listing on a less popular directory will show as a citation back to your website. As you collect citations, your Google Places listing will experience a rise in rankings. Since Google Places is the largest player with search right now, you will want to get as many citations as possible pointing to your website.
One of the beauties of the local search directories is that customers have a way to review your services. Remember the story of your new potential 25 year old customer that does not use a phone book?
Those reviews have a huge impact on your future business prospects. People do read them and many will base their decisions to call you on the reviews of others. There are many directories that allow reviews and encourage them. Some directories will even compile reviews from several different sources.
This brings me to the biggest reason to claim and verify your listings: Reputation Management. Google Places now allows the business owner to respond to customer reviews. That is a very powerful tool especially when faced with a number of glaring and negative reviews. But you cannot respond until you claim and verify your business listing.
There are many businesses, large ones at that, that I find listed in Google Places with close to a dozen negative customer reviews. It is surprising to me that these larger companies are not taking more of an interest in claiming their local listings to help manage their reputation.
What I see is a huge opportunity for smaller businesses to slip in and acquire many new customer accounts from extremely unhappy customers of bigger corporate conglomerates. I think this is a major reason that I love working with small businesses so much. Many small businesses truly know the value of great customer service and the value of having a respected reputation. Often, their name is all they have. So this evolving time online with local directories and even social media is a huge opportunity for small businesses to step up to the plate and show the new generation of customers where they can get great service.
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