If you have a brand, own a website, or frequently research local businesses, you may be well acquainted with online directories such as Yelp, Google My Business, Bing, Yahoo, Yellow Pages, and so on. As a brand owner, you may have been reminded one too many times how important it is to have your business information listed on many different of online directories.
If you are questioning the validity of the importance of business listings, then keep reading! Believe it or not, business listings are a major way to grow your business.
What Are Business Listings?
Local business listings, also known as business directories, are little online profiles that summarize your business information. They serve as powerful tools to help customers find you. There are hundreds of different online directory websites that businesses use to display their information. The common saying is, “The more online directories your business uses, the better!”
It is not only important that your brand is listed on as many directories as possible, but it’s important that your information is accurate. Your business listings should include essential information, such as:
- Your Business Name
- Your Business Address
- Phone Number
- Website
- The Category
- Business Hours
- Description of Your Business
The picture below is a real time screenshot of a Hostirian Business Solutions business listing. This is a real look into how Hostirian is listed online!
You should also consider adding photos, the ability to book an appointment or make a reservation, access to your menu or services, and reviews. It is incredibly important that your business information is accurate across all platforms. And yes, we will repeat this multiple times because it’s just that important!
Why Are Business Listings Important?
The directories listed above, and many more, are places where businesses all over the world can list their information for customers to find. The most important reason why business information is listed is so that search engines can locate your information from the directories, pull it from the website and then display it on local search results (like displayed above). It is absolutely crucial to make sure that your listings are accurate across all platforms, including social media! This is because inaccurate information will negatively impact your search results ranking. If your phone number listed on Google My Business is different than the number you have listed on Yellow Pages, then Google will have a hard time pinpointing who you are.
Your brand listing on Yelp cannot be one letter, number or capital letter different from your brand listing on Google, and so on. Every listing has to look exactly the same. Every apostrophe, every letter in your business name and every number in your phone number means something. Not only will inaccurate and inconsistent listings hurt your SEO and Google search results ranking, but your customers will not trust you. You will be confusing the heck out of them! A lack of trust will result in less sales and a loss of customers. Check out this snapshot of Title Boxing Club’s business listings and how consistent they are across several other directories. They even scored an 86%… Pretty good if you ask us!
As you notice in the pictures above, there are red “errors found”, “not found” or “missing” alerts next to their respective directories. The green “appears correct” alert signals that the business information is correct and consistent across all of those platforms. Like we said, 86% isn’t bad at all!
Grow Your Business
When you have correct brand listing information across all platforms, you are verifying your authority, increasing your SEO, and proving that your business is trustworthy and credible. It is also important that you update your information regularly so that your business can be indexed properly. The directories are designed to constantly ask for your verification so that they can keep the most up-to-date information about your business. This means if you have inputted your business information manually, that you will have to verify every directory in which your business is listed.
We have mentioned this before, but the more listings you have, the better off you are. Think about it. If your business information is listed on hundreds of different websites, you are offering the opportunity for a greater amount of people to view your business information. Business listings are crucial for boosting your local search presence, they help connect you with your community, help people find your business and ultimately help you become more recognized. It’s a very effective way to grow your business. All you need to do is take advantage of it!
We Have An Incredibly Powerful Listing Builder Tool Just For You
Most online directories are free to use (such as Google, social media, Yelp, etc.), but others require a small fee. We’re not going to lie… Tackling business listings all by yourself is a big task. It’s an important element for your business, but it doesn’t demean the amount of work it takes to keep up with your listings.
It’s an incredibly essential tool but it’s also very time consuming. The time that you are spending on manually inputting information could be used to better your business in other ways!
Good news! There are actually some applications and software that you can purchase to put out your business information on hundreds of different platforms, helping your brand rank higher on Google search results. If you are struggling to get business listings on multiple different directories and platforms, have troubles getting ranked on Google or any other related problem, reach out to us here at Hostirian. We offer a comprehensive tool that will handle all of that for you, and more! With our listing builder tool, we can either handle it all for you or we can let you handle it yourself. The Snapshot above is only a part of what you can expect with this tool.
We can’t stress enough how important it is to have online listings! It is even more important that your listings are accurate and on several different directories. Be honest with yourself and don’t try to tackle this job alone. Let us help you! Click the button below to get started!
We can manage it for you or you can handle it for yourself.