There are many sites that will help promote your business. This helps people find your business location in Google Maps.
Why are local listings important?
I need to start this process by defining what I mean by “local listing.” By this, I mean websites whose purpose exists to promote locally focused, brick-and-mortar locations for different businesses. For example:
- Google Business
- Facebook Business Pages
- Yahoo Business Pages
- Yelp
- Superpages
- etc.
There are hundreds of sites like this that will allow you to promote your name, address, and phone number on them.
Local listing sites are essential for a couple of reasons:
- People might look for your business on one of them. You can’t be found on them unless you have a profile there.
- If you want your customers to find you on the most popular option ( Google Maps), you need a Google MyBusiness listing. If you’re going to “rank” in the local pack (when Google shows local businesses in sets beneath a map in the search results), you’ve got to optimize this listing. One of the most important ways to optimize your listing is through name, address, and phone number (NAP) consistency across the web. The more local listing websites list your consistent NAP, the easier it will be to show up in Google.
Even if you don’t have a store or office you want people to visit, it might be worth building and maintaining your local listings.
What should you expect from local listings?
You’ll see the benefit of your local listings in traffic and conversions. These will come from:
- Referral traffic from the local listing sites.
- Increased traffic from Google search, as your Google MyBusiness listing shows up more often because of NAP consistency (and other ranking factors).
- More phone calls (which you are hopefully tracking). Many customers simply want to get on the phone with you.
The Local Listing Process
To learn how to create local listings, you’ll need to signup for more access.