How are Local Business Listings Beneficial For Businesses?

For businesses, local business listings have always been critical. Local businesses simply had to sit back and wait for customers to find them in the days before Google and mobile devices took over the world. Customers easily found their way to local businesses, whether by walking past them or looking them up in the phone book, and conversions were booming. Unfortunately, for nearly two decades, things haven't been that simple. Now, local businesses are under pressure to open up to the public.

Benefits of local business listings

Local business listings have several advantages for local businesses. Not only do they increase a company's online visibility and its chances of being discovered online by potential customersbut they also allow the company to reach a wider audience. Below, we take an in-depth look at these and many other advantages of local business listings.

A significant increase in online presence

The fundamental goal of a local business should be to reach as many potential customers as possible. Search engine optimization tactics, such as listings in online directories, are crucial to achieving this goal: increased online visibility translates into more website traffic and in-person store visits.

Another factor to keep in mind is that if a customer uses voice search to find a local business listing, Google won't respond to businesses that don't have web listings. Since local intent accounts for 40% of all mobile voice searches, local business owners should have their information available online, including their location, phone number, store hours, and services .

A local listing has the added benefit of an automatic boost in search results. Search engines will focus on the information provided in the listing rather than pulling information about the business from other sources (e.g., Facebook, website , blogs , etc.). This gives the business consistency across the web, which can help it rank higher in search results while also establishing trust with search engines.

Consumer reputation has improved

According to the Edelman Trust Barometer, 64 percent of consumers trust online search engines more than anything else when it comes to researching local businesses. Why should customers trust a business that doesn't appear in search engine results? Consumers are much more likely to try well-reviewed local business listings on Google unless they already know and like the company.

A fully detailed and accurate online listing instills greater confidence in a customer. They want to know the business's specific location and why they should go there. Customers are no longer attracted by billboards, magazine ads, or word-of-mouth marketing. If a local business is to be trusted, it should be listed online, with complete profiles of accurate hours and services.

Pro Tip: List your company on trusted local business directories to boost local SEO, attract nearby customers, and grow your presence fast. Start your free listing today!

Customer feedback and sharing that is beneficial

Consumers check an average of 10 online reviews before deciding whether or not to trust a local business, according to BrightLocal. Where would these trusted customer reviews come from if a local business isn't listed in any online review directories or sites?

Local businesses can drastically improve their consumer engagement by allowing online customers to provide honest feedback. Additionally, the business can respond to both favorable and unfavorable reviews, thus strengthening its reputation on local business listing sites. Most shoppers read local business reviews before they post reviews, indicating that it's not just customer opinions that matter.

Additionally, customers are likely to talk about local businesses on social media channels like Facebook and Instagram. Businesses with an online listing are more likely to be shared on social media, which increases their exposure to potential customers and their backlink profile.

Greater chances of outperforming competitors

It can be difficult for a small, local business to build a reputation that competes with its next-door competitor. This is especially true if the other business has many favorable reviews and accurate information online.

Local business listing services help small businesses compete with larger ones and chain stores. Mom-and-pop shops don't stand a chance against big companies on their own, but when it comes to local business listings, size doesn't matter because search engines rank businesses based on other variables, such as trustworthiness.

Local buyers get free online advertising

Many small businesses struggle to allocate funds for marketing. Fortunately, many web directories, such as Google My Business, allow local businesses to add their information for free. It's a cost-effective strategy for increasing brand awareness and online presence without resorting to expensive advertising. If a business doesn't have a listing in the directory, it's effectively wasting free advertising. If you represent a local business that doesn't yet have a Google My Business listing, here's how to get one.

What's the best way to make perfect local business listings?

You'll fill out a form with a specific set of fields every time you create a structured local business listing, whether on Google, Facebook, Yelp, or any other site. It's vital to remember that Google, as the major player in local search, has set the standard for data formatting. When creating most of your listings, you'll want to follow these general principles to ensure they match your Google My Business listing.

1) Name or title of your company

In this field, always use your actual business name. Since Google can read street signs, make sure your name is formatted the same way on your business sign, printed marketing, website logo, and phone numbers. Don't add additional keywords, geographic terms, or other modifiers to your business name.

2) Address

Always include your physical address, without any changes or additions (such as fictitious suite numbers). It's a good idea not to create a business listing for PO boxes or unstaffed virtual offices, as these are not real-world addresses.

Enter your address on line one of the Google Form's address section and any suite or mailbox numbers on line two. To avoid awkward formatting, this is a smart practice to follow for almost all appointments.

3) Phone number

Although Google's guidelines favor phone numbers with a local area code, toll-free numbers have been supported for several years. This is especially important for local businesses like hotels, where most customers are from out of town, and a toll-free number is practical. If you use a toll-free number on your Google My Business page, this number must appear on your website and in all your mentions.

4) Website URL

Google specifies that your website URL that appears directs visitors to a page owned by the business itself and not to a third party, a social profile, or elsewhere. Your website is a place where you can test out new ideas. If you direct all your local business listings to your homepage, which has more authority than an internal page, you may find that your results improve.

However, keep in mind that what you gain in rankings may be lost in human usefulness. You don't want a user to click on a listing only to be directed to the wrong landing page after browsing your site. There's a debate in the local SEO industry about whether rankings or usefulness should determine where your citation URLs point.

5) Categories

When it comes to categories, no other site has rules as strict or specific as Google, but it's essential to be as precise as possible when describing your business. Make it easy for platforms and search engines to figure out who you're most relevant to.

A specialized business can't always identify the most appropriate category to represent on a given platform. When this happens, the best practice is to choose the closest possible type and then rely on other aspects (such as the business description) to clarify the specific nature of the company's goods and services.

6) Describe yourself

This section allows you to showcase the most attractive and impactful aspects of your company, the features that most convince a potential customer to choose you. In most cases, you'll have several hundred characters to create a brief description of your company . You can write a different description for each platform or create a single description and publish it in all your mentions if you wish.

7) Motto

On some local business listing platforms, you may see a field to submit a slogan or tagline. It's not necessary to create a business listing if you don't already have one. However, this field can help introduce customers to companies whose slogans have become locally recognized through radio, television, or social media marketing. Nike's slogan, "Just Do It," is an example of a well-known slogan.

8) Social profiles

Many systems allow you to link to your profiles on Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+, Facebook, and other social media platforms. Filling out these fields whenever possible is worthwhile to direct them to other types of user experience and customer support .

9) Photographs

According to Google, photos have a significant impact on local business listings' click-through rates, so whenever a platform allows it, it's a good idea to post as many high-quality images as possible.

Ensuring your content is optimized for search engines is one of the most effective ways to market your site. This is an area of ??digital marketing where the best website builder for small businesses should help you gain an advantage. For example, Citylocal101 includes a built-in SEO tool that allows you to easily modify your page's metadata (meta descriptions, image alt tags, etc.) to make it more searchable.

Conclusion

Your local search engine rankings are directly influenced by the quality, consistency, and reach of your local business listings, which drive web traffic, foot traffic, and transactions. Given the importance of this component of the local search visibility marketing puzzle, taking the time to ensure your local business listings are accurate, complete, and discoverable on key platforms is well worth the effort.