How to Rank Higher Online by Improving Your Business Listings
Factors for A High Ranking Listing
If you want to rank well on local search engines, you need consistent listings; NAP data (name, address, phone number), website, hours, and more across all major listing directories. This is a must in order to be validated as a credible local business. The more accurate and consistent your business’ information is, the more search engines will trust the validity of the business. The more the search engines trust the business, the higher you will rank in local Search Engine Results Page.
According to a study conducted by Moz, 13% of professionals say that having your business being mentioned online regularly (also called local citation) is one of the most important elements in Local Pack Ranking factor.
Business Listings
The information mentioned in business listings can vary but some key pieces of information hold true across them all.
NAP Data
The most determining data held in a business listing is the NAP data—name, address, and phone number information. It is critical for the online visibility of any business. Having accurate and up-to-date NAP data ensures that not only will consumers find your business online, but that they will also have the correct information on how to contact you.
In fact, 50% of mobile users are looking for business addresses.
NAP data is also important for search engines like Google to display your business in geo-targeted searches. If someone is searching for “good seafood” in the Boston area, the local Boston seafood places with correct NAP data will appear. Of course Google gives search ranking priority to business with correct NAP data—how else are they supposed to tell where you are, what you do, and if you’re even a legitimate business at all?
Despite the importance of accurate NAP data, studies show that quite a lot of businesses are failing even at this basic step into the world of listings. Here are some stats from a study by Localeze, 2015.
- 86% of businesses have either missing or incorrect company name information listed across all listings sources
- 72% of businesses have either missing or incorrect address information listed across all listings sources
- 71% of businesses have either missing or incorrect phone number information listed across all listings sources
Hours of Operation
If you want to score some bonus points, don’t forget to include information like hours of operation. When a consumer is looking for a business or the service a business provides, they have a high purchase intent, and are probably searching for an immediate need. If the business is shown as “open”, they will most likely visit the business.
In fact, 73% of purchases that result from mobile searches happen within the same day, and most (63%) within a few hours.
If your business has no hours listed, the consumer would have to go out of their way to find out whether or not you’re open. 76% of consumers report that they expected hours of operation information when conducting a search and over 60% of consumers find that knowing the business hours helps them make their purchase decision! This is a big inconvenience for this customer, not only do they not know your business hours, but their time is being wasted.
Let the negative reviews commence!
If your competitor has their business hours listed, they will most probably capture that consumer. People just want their needs fulfilled—they’d be happy to spend their money at a business that has their hours correctly listed if they were coming in-store to make the purchase.
Website Link
Put that website link into your business listings. Consumers will often travel from Google search into a business website to get a feel for the business, and learn more about what they’re offering. So obviously, including a link to your website is important for their online presence.
Does your business have a central “hub” of information to direct users to online? Here is an interesting statistic: 93% of businesses have either missing or incorrect website information listed across all listings sources.
If a user can find your website, they’ll get a better impression of your business, and likely have a more positive experience. With nearly half of small businesses not having a website, you can make your business stand out on the SERP (Search Engine Results Page) by including your website data in the listing information.
Some More Information To Consider
- Payment methods
- Services
- Brands
- Holiday hours
- Images
- Social profiles
Depending on your business vertical, there may be other pieces of information important for you to include in their online business listings. The more information you include, the easier it will be for consumers to find your business, purchase your products and/or services and leave a review!
Find out more about Review Management and how it can help grow your business, book a consultation now.
What are Listings and Why Do They Matter?
Listings are an online entries for your business. Their role is to help customers find you online and in real life. They contain 4 simple pieces of information that provide the basic information potential customers need to have: NAP+W
NAP+W is the acronym that explains it all.
- Name
- Address
- Phone number
- Website
If you want to score some bonus points, don’t forget to include information like hours of operation — it’s what consumers are most interested in!
Making sure your listings pay off
Having an up-to-date and accurate listing is important for your SEO performance. They are available through many sources, including search engines, online directories and maps, or social sites, and the more you are present on these sources, the better. This will create multiple avenues for consumers to find your business.
And remember, presence only pays off if the listings are accurate! Listings are accurate if the information is correct and consistent across all potential sources.
The importance of listings
With good presence and accuracy, they will undoubtedly pay off for your business. Here’s how:
No more hiding
Correct, consistent and readily available listings will help guide consumers right to your business’s door steps. If a business’s listing is incorrect or missing, the majority of consumers will feel less confident about the brand, leading them to choose a competitor’s product or service.
Here’s the sad reality: 75 percent of searchers will not go past page one if they don’t see what they’re looking for.
The availability of accurate listings ensures customers are actually able to find your business’ locations while it’s still open for business.
This means money in the business’ pocket and, just as importantly, it means the business can be reviewed.
The importance of online reviews
Reviews, whether positive or negative, are an essential tool for developing a business’ online reputation and promoting brand loyalty and they should be managed correctly. They allow customers to communicate their experience with a business to potential buyers, but if consumers can’t find a business listed online, their opinion of it won’t be well-informed.
In fact, 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations and almost 95% of shoppers read reviews before making a purchase decision!
Accurate listings create the opportunity for transparency between businesses and consumers in the form of reviews, and the availability of these accurate listings will help increase a business’s visibility.
Boosting a business’ SEO
Consistent, accurate and readily available listings, as well as customer reviews, will directly benefit a business’s visibility by boosting its ranking in local search engine results. Optimising your website for SEO should go hand-in-hand with building an effective website. But Search Engine Optimisation is quite a complex tool, so why not take advantage of it by simply ensuring your business’ listings are done accurately!
Get started today!
This listings low-down provides basic definitions and descriptions of the benefits of business listings. Creating listings on sites worth lots of points improves your listings score and we have ranked all of them for you by importance using a lot of key factors—how many sites reference them, traffic, demographics and more. Implementing the tactics mentioned above will give you a head start on your competition!
To find out more about listings and how they can help grow your business, book a consultation now.
Why your local business listings need to be accurate
As a business, how likely is it that potential customers will come through your door? The whole point of online local business listings is to entice customers into your store, your leasing office or your showroom so you can convert them to paying customers rather than just browsers online.
1. Missing hours of operation information can be a dealbreaker
There are many things that people look for in local business listings, whether they are looking at that search engine on a PC or on a mobile device. The top piece of information that most people look for is the hours of operation since their search is likely for a business that they frequent quite often.
2.You can’t spell NAP data (and score a citation) without an A(ddress)
While most people would assume that the number one reason people do a search online is for the address or location of a business, the address is actually behind hours of operation as the second most desired information. But, of course, the whole point of being in business is to make money doing what you love or selling what you love. And that happens by attracting foot traffic and increasing customer base.
It bears repeating that if a business address is incorrect on listing sites such as Google or Bing, then customers will not be crossing the threshold.
3. Local searchers are mobile creatures
According to Localeze, mobile-phone-based searches drive in-store purchases with more than 75% of searches ending in a purchase—if a business has their listing details correct. Now if half of the people searching for a business listing on a local search engine, such as Google Local/Maps, can’t find the store’s business listing details, then the business is going to lose 100% of their business.
For ease of use for potential customers, some of those details need to be as readily available as possible in a mobile-friendly manner. This can be accomplished with a responsive website that supports cellphone and tablet-specific versions.
4. Updated, accurate websites still serve as a first impression
At the same time, more than 60% of searches on PC platforms such as website portals, Internet Yellow Page directories and local sites have a similar chance of ending in a purchase. While mobile searches are becoming more of a standard in where a customer searches, a business owner should not discount the power of a fulsome, consistent and accurate listing that is reflective of the business website.
Local business listings should be linked to the business’s website and feature the exact same information, but more of it. While a website should be enough to entice a customer to visit or buy, if those inconsistencies exist, then trust issues may arise in a business’s practices before a customer ever crosses their threshold.
5. Local searchers mix it up across multiple devices, situations and times
People who search for listings are doing it in many more ways than when the Internet first coalesced into existence about two decades ago. In that time, we went from working on desktops to laptops to PDAs to Blackberries to Apples to tablets—and in each iteration, the methods of search have changed.
However, that has slowed over the last five years or so as web developers realize that they need to be smarter. Rather than designing three different sites for three different platforms, they have created websites that are scalable to the search device. And that has been helped along by the proliferation of types of devices in use every day.
The most important part of those mobile searches is accuracy. If someone cannot find your business in a local search or find inaccurate results whilst out and about, then your business has lost the chance for that browser to become a customer. So having those listings correct in all of the device formats is a must as we, and our technology, continue to evolve in the way we interact with local businesses.
6. Local search results are trusted sources of information
Last but certainly not least is the fact that local search results are considered the most trustworthy. 73% of consumers stated that they lose trust in a brand when the online listing shows incorrect information (Placeable, 2014).
Think about it, would you rather find a local store where you can get that latest purse in town right now? Or you can wait a week for delivery, which is four days past the event that you want it for! Local searches lend themselves to instant gratification and that interaction between browser and salesperson will convert that browser from someone who might get just the minimum to a loyal customer who feels like a million having spent a little more, but getting what they consider to be gold!
Those interactions are what lead people to local searches and the absolute necessity of getting your listings correct. Trust leads to loyalty, which leads to more business, which leads to happy customers and business owners.
And it all starts with that correct listing in that customer’s local search.
We can help you figure all of it out, book a consultation now.
