Has it ever occurred to you that you’re wandering around the streets of the town you’ve never been to and you are about to look for the cute place to buy souvenirs that can’t be found online? You are headed toward the place you managed to find, yet accidentally, you’re passing by a magical shop you just missed to see upon searching. You immediately change your decision – you’re about to enter that one and forget the rest. How is it possible that it was never shown to you when searching? The answer is simple – because it wasn’t listed.
In case you’re a business owner or entrepreneur, your chances to become available for potential users increase significantly if the interested parties can locate your facilities. If you’re in the middle of a frequently-visited area packed with tourists, you’ll love this service even more.
What is local listing management?
If you decide to become available online to all potential users, this type of service is extremely important for you. It simply allows your business details to be exposed, accurate, and regularly updated on online social media websites and other relevant places. When users search for the business online, especially if they’re looking for a particular thing fast, the chances they locate your business increases if your online presence is listed on as many platforms as possible.
The data that’s available to them based on the search criteria and search platform can be a business name, locations, online pages like maps, social media sites, or Google. The information they’re looking for can differ. It usually involves the appearance of your stores/facilities if they’re trying to find your brick-and-mortar points of sale or they just want to see working hours, inside photographs, or what you’re offering.
It’s essential that in case some of your facilities change some details such as working hours, phone number, or email, it all gets updated quickly to make sure no user is rejected due to incorrect information. You want to make sure your business is credible with every single detail for your customers.
The importance of local listing management
There were times when this service wasn’t as important as it is today. Modern customers appreciate speed and trustworthiness along with their convenience more than ever. Today, users mostly rely on the internet to search for the options for their next purchase, gather information about alternatives, and then make decisions. If your brand has good reviews, this increases the chances of being shortlisted for potential clients and get long-term customers as a result.
There are countless advantages of using this service, which can be seen if you check this platform, and for your convenience, some of the most important ones are shortlisted below.
1. Visibility and presence
If your business is visible online, it means that, when the customer looks for a certain store/product with ‘near me’ using their locator on the smart device, this service makes sure your brand/store/facility pops up and gives them information about what you offer.
The fact that your business is listed in as many places on the web as possible will certainly influence the number of customers you get as a result. Even if you don’t attract the customer right away, upon their first search they’ll be informed about your presence and they might approach you after a short while. That way, your brand lives in their subconscious mind for a longer period.
2. Traffic boost
When done perfectly, local listing management can increase traffic to your website. To realize how this works, just imagine yourself as a customer who’s just looking for a particular service nearby. When you see several options upon search, then chances are you’ll click on the one that offers the most comprehensive information that seems more reliable to you.
When those interested buyers click on the links to visit your page and check out the offers you have, traffic gets boosted, and chances for purchase rise. Good enough, right?
3. Time saver
When you decide to use this tool, there’s software that gives you an option of allowing your business to send the listing from one central location to the platforms where your customers can review the data. This type of program can save you a significant amount of time so that you don’t have to update the information on each and every platform. It keeps the track of all information from the online spots your business is listed on, and you can make changes in a blink of an eye, with an immediate effect.
4. SEO optimization improvement
We all know how SEO is important to our online presence and that its results also reflect on our offline results. Local listing isn’t the same as SEO, yet the unison results you offer on all platforms your business is present online, the relevance of it becoming optimized for search increases.
We can say that SEO and local listing management go hand in hand – local listing is essential for improving your company’s SEO. Speed makes a difference here as well. While your company might appear in search results already, it’s very important when and where it appears. It’s natural to conclude that the faster and the earlier it appears, the more your buyers will come to you instead of going to your competitors.
5. Fast updates
Imagine that you’re an owner of a local cafe chain and you have a quiz night approaching on five locations with different prizes and different table availability. Perhaps a different happy hour and number of people that can participate per cafe. All this information needs to be updated quickly and, if such events take place every week, it might become a nightmare to create all the updates one by one.
While your customers may be interested in the information about the cafes near to their homes, the prizes might sound more tempting in the downtown area, so they might decide to go a long way for it. You would like to make sure all the updates are done as quickly as possible with the relevant information and that no customer appears at the place where all tables have already been reserved due to the lack of up-to-date details. With local listing management, you can relax and make sure all visitors are well-informed promptly and just enjoy the upcoming events without much fuss.
Kim Marks 
Nicola Holder