Has someone ever told you that your business listings are not accurate? Did it leave you scratching your head wondering what they were talking about? Or more importantly, asking yourself why do business listings even matter? Well read on as we help you understand the what, why and how of this essential element of being found online.

What are business listings?

Business listings are the online version of the old-school Yellow Pages all businesses who cared about being found used to pay to be in. While you may be familiar with certain business listing sites like Google My Business and Yelp, there are a myriad of lesser known sites that also display your information. Some sites are more robust than others but all at a minimum will show your business name, address, phone number. This is referred to as NAP.

By fully optimizing your business listings with images, videos, product descriptions, service offerings, etc. you greatly increase their searchability and provide more opportunities for interactions  such as calls, requests for directions, etc.

Why do business listings matter?

So you may think that as long as you take care of the most popular business listing sites you’re good. Who is going to find you on the lesser known ones anyway? The truth is that although you may not derive business from these other sites, when the information they show is accurate, they validate your business with the major high traffic ones and most importantly with Google.

As the number one search engine, Google, who controls 92% of all searches, aims to deliver the best experience possible. By controlling the information Google sees about your business you greatly improve your chances of showing up in organic search results. This key search engine optimization (SEO) practice could be the difference between your customer finding and buying from you or finding your competitor. Therefore it is in your best interest to ensure your information is not only accurate but available on as many sites as possible. 

How to control your information across innumerable business listings.

To start, you need to know where your business is listed online. If this sounds like a daunting and time consuming task, it is. Luckily there is a tool available to assist with this. Running a business listing scan with the tool gives you a quick snapshot of the health of your listings and where inaccuracies exist.

Now you have a choice; manually fix all the errors or use a software to update your listings and lock in your business information. Manually updating your information could potentially burn up to 500 hours of your time yearly as these business listings may revert back to older information when updating their databases.  Using a business listing management software is the smartest way to go. Not only is your information locked in across a vast network of sites but any changes or updates you make automatically populate everywhere you are found. Doesn’t that sound like the best solution to guarantee the accuracy of your online business presence?
So what are you waiting for? Let us scan your business, show you the results and help you take control of your online presence!