It used to be that if you wanted to find local businesses, you went to the yellow pages. Now, everyone goes online. Businesses appear in online searches by having local business listings.
Learn about what local listings are, the best ones, and how to create and manage local listings.
What are local listings?
Local listings are local business listings on search engines, directory websites, social media, or map apps that contain the business’s information (including name, address, and phone number). When users search for services like yours in your area, your business appears, and they can contact you.
Not being in the directories at all makes potential customers not be able to find you. They will search for the service or product and go to another business that shows up in their results.
Having local listings but having inaccurate information isn’t much better because it confuses potential customers. They may not be able to contact you, or they may lose trust and confidence in the credibility of your business.
It is important to have accurate listings to help potential customers find you on social media, when looking in directories, searching on maps apps, or when searching for services “near me.”
It also positively impacts your SEO because it helps Google verify you are a legitimate business, which helps you rank higher.
What types of information are included in local listings?
All local listings will have basic information: your NAP (business name, address, phone number) and hours of operation. Most sites also allow you to link to your website. This information needs to match exactly across all websites and directories.
There is a lot of additional information that can be provided, depending on the directory, such as
- Business category
- Business description
- Driving directions
- Links to social media
- Email addresses
- Fax numbers
- Images
- Videos
- Payment forms accepted
- Geo-coordinates
- Reviews
- Owner responses
- Taglines
Our local citations plan includes all of these types of information.
Benefits of local listings
There are many benefits of having local listings, such as:
- Business is shown to more potential customers who search online
- Makes it easy for customers to call you or get directions to your location
- Improves business reputation (builds trust and credibility by showcasing reviews and photos)
- They are free advertising, since many directories are free to list on, such as Google or your local Chamber of Commerce
- Being on local directories helps your SEO, so you can rank more easily on Google
Learn more about the benefits of local citations for your business.
Best local listings
Our citation service lists your business in the top 66+ best local listings, including:
- Yellow Pages
- Yelp
- Bing Places
- Apple Maps
- local Chamber of Commerce
- field-specific directories
- Amazon Alexa
- Baidu
- Eventbrite
- Foursquare
- MapQuest
- OpenTable
- Postmates
- Snapchat
- TripAdvisor
- Uber
- UberEats
- Waze
- Yahoo!
- 2findlocal
- 8coupons
- ABLocal
- AirYell
- All Events in City
- AlergyEats
- Allmenus
- Alonesearch
- American Towns.com
- AroundMe
- Banks.com
- BetterDoctor
- Bitzwiki
- Brownbook.net
- CareDash
To check your current local listings, you can use our free scan of your local business listings.
Local listing management
Local listing management is creating, claiming, and verifying listings to ensure your business information (especially name, address, phone number, and hours) is up-to-date and consistent across directories, social media, search engines, and maps.
Even slight inconsistencies, such as Main St. vs Main Street or some listings saying LLC and others not, can confuse search engines and hurt your rankings. Make sure your information is exactly the same across websites.
When filling out information in different directories, it is important to fill in all fields and provide as much information as possible. Add photos and link to your website.
Start managing your local listings by creating or claiming your business on the main sites:
- Yelp
- Bing Places
- Apple Maps
How to create a Google local listing
A local listing on Google is a free business listing in the search results and map that shows your business’s name, address, phone number, and hours. It increases how often you appear in search results and allows for reviews and engagement with customers.
You can create a Google local listing by making a Google Business Profile. Search for your business and claim it, or add your business if it doesn’t appear. Completely fill out your business profile, add your service area, add photos, and allow for messaging and quote requests. Verify your business.
Make sure to keep all your information up to date, post regularly, and engage with questions and reviews.
Learn more about how to optimize your Google Business Profile.
Ongoing listing management
Local listing management is not do it once and forget about it. It needs regular maintenance.
Remove any listings that are duplicates or that are in directories that are not related to your niche.
Periodically checking listings to ensure that everything is up-to-date and responding to reviews or questions.
Hire local listings services
When learning how to do local listings, you have two options: 1. manage the listings yourself, or 2. hire a local listing service. There are pros and cons to both options.
Managing yourself saves on the expense of hiring someone, but businesses can be in dozens of listings, and it is very time-consuming to ensure you are in all the local directories you want to be in and that the information is accurate and consistent. Hiring a professional can save you a lot of time and get you more business long-term.
There are different local listing management services. Pick a service that allows you to have ownership over your listings permanently, instead of a service like Yext that only keeps your listings up and active as long as you continue their service.
Consider Awebco for your local listing management
Here at Awebco, we check all your current local listings and claim and update them. We then add you to local directories and 3 data aggregators (companies that collect your information and distribute it to a wide variety of applicable websites) to ensure your business appears wherever your customers are searching.
We ensure all your information is consistent and designed to give you the best presence online.
As soon as we set up an account on any directory or update a listing, we give you the login information, so you have full control over your listings.
Call us today at 217-903-5999 or reach us online to learn more about our Local Citations Service!
