Small business owners: Claim your local business listing!
You have probably received a phone call that goes something like this: Hello, I am just calling to confirm a few facts about your business. Is your address still 1234 Main Street? Is your main product line still tire tubes? Is your fax number still - well you get the picture.
The company calling you is probably InfoUSA, Acxiom, Localeze or one of several others that produce data feeds. They sell this verified and updated business information to places like Yahoo Local Listings, which then takes the information to create local business listings for internet search. Since 50% of businesses close within 5 years of opening, getting business data refreshed on an ongoing basis is important to these local search sites. Which means, you will never stop receiving these calls!
Armed with this information and after creating your business listing, Yahoo Local then relies on the business owner (you) to "claim" the listing and add user contributed data. This may be business descriptions, photos, business hours, types of payment accepted etc.
Many small business owners are ignoring these existing Local Business Listing sites because they are either too busy or just find the whole SEO thing annoying and confusing. But why would you pass up an opportunity to add keywords to your listing, to correct the business category or add another category? Why would you pass up free advertising and the chance to generate leads and increase your website performance? Updating your local business listing should be a part of your small business marketing strategy.
One by one all of these free services are finding ways to monetize the service, usually by offering more features for a slight fee.
For instance, Yahoo offers the basics for free. Phone, address, website url, store hours, products and services. They charge a small fee for "Enhanced" listings where you can add your logo, 10 photos, and more details about your business.
Keep in mind that all of the local listing services have a verification process. They want to make sure the business information is correct and not used for fraudulent practices. An example of fraud would be a competitor going into your listing and changing your phone number to theirs!
Here are a few local listing sites that you should visit soon.
Google Places
Bing Local Listing Center
Yahoo Local Listings
Before going to these sites, it helps to have all of your business information handy. We have a handy little worksheet that we send to clients to get basic business information. You will notice that some of the business listing sites only allow a 200 character business description. Others are more generous. Since we are usually doing SEO work for clients, the keyword-rich business description has already been developed and we fill in that area ourselves.
Have fun and just a slight warning. The verification process will sometimes drive you mad. For example, for Google it is best to "claim" your listing but not edit it until a couple of weeks down the road. Otherwise you may end up with a duplicate listing and then lose your existing reviews when you go to delete it.
