Marketing Monday # 19 – How Local Listing Sites Can Drive Business

Have you done all that you can to get the local exposure your business needs?  One way to do this is to list your business on local listing pages.  There are several of these sites online.  Google Plus Local, Bing Local, Yahoo Local, Yelp, and Angie’s List, are a few of local listing business sites.

There are several benefits listing your business on these sites.  While they all bring exposure, the benefits may vary slightly between the sites.  We’ll review some of the biggest benefits with the named sites.

The biggest listing pages are search engine local pages.  These are Google Plus Local, Bing Local and Yahoo Local.  While these sites are very similar and aim to accomplish the same goal, there’s an obvious advantage that Google Plus Local has over the other two so we’ll look at them separately.

Due to the integration that Google sets up amongst all of it’s sites and programs and the continuous drive to increase and improve this integration, listing with Google Plus Local is a must!  When you list your business with Google Plus Local, Google uses this information across it’s platforms, however, the biggest visibility may be in Google Maps and how Google Plus plays into search engine results on Google.

• Google maps:When your business appears in search results the listing includes a map with the business location identified, address, hours, cost range (indicated by dollar signs – the more signs the higher the prices), links to menus (if an eatery) review ratings.  One thing to note, Google only shows review ratings from Google reviews.  However, they do list other sites for people to check out your reviews but if visitors don’t go to the actual sites they won’t see them.  Be sure to have your customers review your business through Google!
• Google Plus results on Google:Your businesses results on Google appear with articles and authorship.  For a deeper understanding of this please read our post titled “Explore How Using Google+ Can Benefit Your Business”.

Bing Local and Yahoo local also list local business information and map location for people when searching on those search engines.  However, Bing and Yahoo have not set up their own review capabilities.  They have partnered with Yelp and pull in reviews from Yelp in their local search results.

Local listing sites also play a big role in customers finding your business.  Some of these sites are Yelp and YP.com.

Yelp describes itself as “the best way to find great local businesses”.  While that may be true, they are known for the reviews that people are able to post about the businesses.  Positive reviews on well-known review sites are always beneficial.

As stated, another site that is in this space and growing is YP.com.  In addition to listing local businesses based on search terms, they provide business suggestions based on the searchers location.

In addition to the vast search engine listings and local listing pages, there are niche-listing sites.  These sites focus on businesses that provide services for certain areas.

Angie’s list does this for the home and health arenas.  The great benefit to listing with a site like Angie’s list is that their consumers are subscribers.  Due to this, their prospective customers are serious; they aren’t simply browsing.  People who search through Angie’s list have a need and are looking to get it met.

Another site that follows this formula is Best Pick Reports.  The added value of these sites is that they publish regularly scheduled catalogs or magazines that are sent to their subscribers, which also include their listings.

You may want to research your business niche to find more targeted listing sites.

Listing your business locally across several sites can help drive business and reputation.  Take some time to set up your local listings this week.  Once done, we can assist you with integrating some of this (Google maps) into your website. Contact us today!