Business local search in Google, Yahoo/Yext, Bing and Yelp is critical for many businesses. Now Facebook, with the power of its social connections, has made local search an important part of its platform. This will be an enormous marketing opportunity. And Bing has partnered with Yelp to display Yelp local listings on selected Bing local search results pages. Don’t ignore these marketing machines, as they are guaranteed to bring you new customers!
Why?
Almost half of all searchers are looking for something local. What’s more, if they are using a smartphone when making those searches, then 78% of those users will buy in the physical, bricks-and-mortar store.
Don’t quite believe it? Here’s a May, 2015 article quoting Google as a source: “Data Suggest Local-Intent Queries Nearing Half of All US Search Volume.”
Even back in 2014, we knew this:
- “Research: 56 Percent of “On The Go” Searches Have Local Intent.” And
- Local searchers are buyers: “Study: 78 Percent Of Local-Mobile Searches Result In Offline Purchases.”
If you’ve been in business a while, chances are you already have a business listing in Google, Yahoo/Yext, Bing, Yelp, Facebook and a few others. But these listings may or may not be correct, because they were harvested from various databases here and there all over the Internet. And unless you’ve actually “claimed” your listings, they’re certainly incomplete. At the very least, claim your listing, make sure correct information is there, and upload a few photos. It’s totally free.
Your incorrect and incomplete business “citations” (those Websites and directories all over the Web where your business name, address and phone number appear), can destroy you local search ranking and confuse your customers.
How do you make your local listing come to the top of the competition? First, you’ll need to claim it by verifying that it’s your listing, then correct any discrepancies and complete all the business details. You’ll need to ensure that the identical business details– completed and optimized– are in Google, Yahoo/Yext, Bing, Yelp and Facebook– and all the other important local search venues. And you’ll need to get yourself listed in as many of those places as you can. A primary factor in how highly your business local search listing ranks is how many places on the Web your correct, identical business name, address and phone number appear. All this takes specialized know-how and it’s tedious. It can take you hours of plodding, repetitive and mind-numbing online form-filling. We have years of experience in doing it the smart way, and we can do all this for you.