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Every business operating in the digital age must be visible to the target audience online. The best way to do it is to have marketing campaigns that are search engine optimized. With over 75 percent of adults being connected online, search engine optimization is an integral part of any marketing plan.
Local listing is one of the most cost-effective ways of getting visible online especially for the businesses that serve a given area. Local listing management involves several activities aimed at enabling the business to appear in more local search engine results.
What is the importance of local listing?
According to Google, 94 percent of internet users use mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Over 80 percent use the internet to find local goods and services. Out of this, over 90 percent are usually in need of these products and services. They take action to get the said services.
These clients will call the business, place an order online or walk to the business premise to get what they want. Therefore this is one of the ways to get solid leads for your business.
The local listing enables you to promote your goods and services to a particular target demographic group. You can single out a given geographic region such as a city or a town. You can also target some given zip codes.
Local listing has a huge impact on the development of the brand and maximizes its awareness. The more your target audience is exposed to your brand, the more it is likely to utilize your goods and services whenever a need arises.
This is also a cost-effective method of advertising. If your business does not serve the whole country, ranking in nation search results has no value. It is also a waste of your funds. Local listing services ensure that your efforts are directed to the potential clients that you can actually serve.
It is also cheaper than fighting to appear in the top spot of the general SERP results. Many more similar businesses are also fighting for the same spot making it very expensive. However, at the local level, it is a little cheaper and more effective.
Listing on directories is also good for your general SEO strategy. A significant number of potential visitors may not see your website straight from the organic search results. However, they are directed to the site from a local listing directory. If you garner more backlinks from the listing, you eventually rank well when searched straight from the SERP results. This increases visibility with minimum efforts.
How can you do local listing management right?
Here are a few things that you can do to enhance the power of the local listing
Optimize your local information
You need to optimize each page of your website to reflect your location data. Such data includes the name of the business, phone number, and address. Have this information put in the same location and format on each page. It helps gain credibility when search engine crawlers visit your site.
Build local marketing pages
Increase the number of platforms where you market your business locally. Some of the effective marketing pages include social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, Yahoo! Local, and Google Places among other free services.
Select local listing directories to use
There are several local listing services on the internet that help increase the business exposure to the local audience. Here are the five most popular ones
- Google My Business (GMB): This free of charge service shows the exact location of the map along with a mobile-friendly map of the location
- Bing Places for Business: This directory allows you to ass multiple locations if you have several branches, videos and photos of your business
- Yahoo Local Listing: This is the third-largest directory. Its basic listing is free. However, if you would like to add company descriptions and photos, you will have to pay $9.95/month. You can buy space in 40 other listings at $29.99 a month.
- Yelp: Yelp leads in providing transparent consumer reviews. You can use the platform to connect and speak to your clients directly after they have reviewed you.
- FourSquare: This is a combination of a social networking site and a business directory. Visitors can check-in and comment on your business with or without the mobile app.
Check the accuracy of your listing
It is sad to put a lot of effort into local listing only for your prospects to be sent to the wrong locations and non-existing places. You have to ensure that the street address, email and phone number are correct. This information has to be checked periodically across different platforms. Any change of premise or address should also be captured as soon as it happens.
The importance of local listing cannot be underestimated. However, you have to ensure that it is done right across all the selected platforms. It is also important to harmonize information contained in all your advertising platforms.
We at Indiwork helps our client in maintaining their local business presence proper way and we ensure that you reach your targeted audience at right time & right place. For more details, you can get in touch with your experts.
