Why Local Listing Management Matters & 3 Ways to Do it

Contrary to belief, your business’s local listing isn’t something you can create and forget about. Like any part of your digital marketing strategy—such as your website, social media profiles or PPC campaign—local listings require maintenance and ongoing management to be effective.

A recent report from Local Search Association looked at the importance of local listing management and how it affects businesses. According to the report, more than 30 billion local search queries are performed each month in the US and 86% of consumers say they have used a search engine in the last month to find local business information.

In order for all those searchers to find your business, two important things must happen:

1. Your local listing needs to show up
   
2. Your information needs to be correct
   

Making sure your information is correct means continuously updating and managing your listing. The same Local Search Association report found that if a business’s local listing information turns out to be incorrect, 14% of searchers said they would look for another business. That means if your local listing—and all other mentions of your business—isn’t properly managed, you could be losing out on a significant portion of potential customers.

For small business owners who rely on local searches to gain new customers, accurate business information isn’t a choice—it’s your only option.

Even if your business doesn’t move locations or change the services offered, there are still ways you can continually update your listing. Here are our top 3 ways to manage your local listing.

A local citation is any listing of your business’s name, address and phone number (NAP) on various websites, apps, local business directories and more. Simply put, it’s any online mention of your business’s contact information.

Think of all the places these listings appear online:

• Your website
  
• Your social media pages
  
• Yelp
  
• Google
  

These are all your local citations. You should aim to have a minimum of 50 local citations across the internet. They are important for small businesses in particular because they act as additional places your information can be found and provide a way for more consumers to discover you.

Google My Business is now pushing local listings as a way for consumers to contact businesses directly, rather than sending them to the website first. The search engine has added a ton of information consumers might find useful, allowing them to find whatever they want right at their fingertips.

Local listings now allow you to add additional information, such as:

• Wait times
  
• Short posts
  
• Menus
  
• Action links (order online, make a reservation, etc.)
  
• FAQs
  
• Pictures
  

This information needs to be updated fairly frequently. You can add images, update FAQs and write posts to tell consumers about new products.

Just as your additional details are constantly being updated, so are your reviews. If you’re properly managing your reviews —the way our Review Builder does—you should be gaining new customer reviews on a regular basis.

Not only does this add further detail to your listing, but it also gives you a chance to respond to customers. Your response can easily add content and information about your products/services for others to see. By routinely responding to reviews, you’re keeping your local listing fresh and creating an additional marketing opportunity.

The more you put into your local listing management efforts, the more you'll get out of it. Digital marketers understand the importance of continuously managing your local listing, which is why we’re seeing an emphasis on this service in digital strategies.

But it’s not enough to claim your listing and watch it go. In today’s digital marketing landscape, you have to monitor all things related to your business, and that includes your local listing. We promise it’s a task that will pay off.