3 Reasons to Care About Local Business Listings

Local SEO efforts directly correlate to your business’ reputation, rankings, and revenue. That’s why its vital to understand the purpose of local business listings and citations.

What is local search?

As the name might suggest, local SEO is intended to attract customers in concentrated areas such as a specific town or city. Greater search visibility for small businesses often means more foot traffic, more service opportunities, and ultimately, more revenue.

To this end, Local SEO is all about increasing search visibility for businesses that rely on face-to-face interactions with their customers. These can be brick-and-mortar businesses with physical office space, like a law or dental office, or businesses like electricians and construction companies that services specific geographic areas.

Much like traditional search optimization, local SEO is designed to improve your visibility on Google and other search engines. This is largely done by creating content using keywords that are relevant to searches your target audience is looking for.

Examples of a local search query include phrases such as “lawyers near me,” “dentist in Lexington,” and even, “best Lexington eye doctor.”

What is the role of business listings in local SEO?

Not that long ago, businesses had a plethora of options for publicizing their business locally through phone book listings, newspaper advertisements, mailers, and even telemarketing.

Unfortunately, as marketing has taken a turn towards digital channels, many of these mediums have become all but obsolete either due to cost alone or a general lack of disinterest on the part of consumers.

In this way, internet marketing has become as much of a necessity for the mom and pop shop down the street as it is for the likes of Starbucks and Aspen Dental.

With over 90% of consumers searching for local businesses online, local citations are quickly replacing traditional offline advertising. As a result, more businesses are turning to local business directories online for an accessible way to publish their business information.

Here are 3 important reasons your business should care about local directory listings.

1. Gain visibility.

Many online directories (including Google My Business) allow businesses to submit their information for publication for free. This is a cost-effective way to boost brand awareness and increase online visibility for brands that can’t or don’t want to turn to paid advertising.

That aside, published online listings offer businesses an automatic boost in search visibility. Though you won’t get to the first position result simply by submitting your business information, you will gain favor over businesses that have not submitted their own information for publication.

Building citations on sites like Google, Facebook, and within relevant online directories such as Angie’s List or Healthgrades ultimately gives your business more online visibility. This in turn helps your business to be found by the right people at the right time.

2. Control your brand.

A pleasant side effect of creating citations for your business is that you get more control over your brand. Submitting and/or claiming your online business listings allows you to determine how your business is displayed in the search results. Instead of merely pulling information about businesses from multiple sources (i.e. Facebook, websites, etc.), search engines will rely on the information presented in your verified listing.

3. Secure consumer trust.

It’s no secret that reviews are a vital part of your business’ reputation. Even so, digital reviews are increasingly referenced by consumers as a make or break factor in their buying decisions. This makes your business’ ability to receive and display reviews crucial to securing consumer trust.

Publishing/claiming your business listings on reputable review sites like Yelp or the Better Business Bureau makes it easy for existing customers to leave feedback and even easier for prospects to find this information. At the end of the day, word-of-mouth reviews will get out there so you may as well make the most of it!

Find a marketing agency to help with your local business listings.

The importance of local listings can’t be overstated.

Think about how often people, yourself included, search for businesses near them? Searching for local businesses online is becoming easier with each passing day, so the importance of having listings online is growing, as well.

If you own a local business, it is imperative that you are not only represented online but that your representation is accurate as well. This is growing even more important during the ongoing health crisis.

If you’re unsure where to begin, consider enlisting the help of a local marketing agency!

Modern SEO: Snake Oil vs Structure [Plus, 5 Important Questions to Ask a SEO Agency]

Understanding SEO, even on a basic level, is helpful in recognizing scams and companies that are just out to make a quick buck. That’s why we take the time to educate you about the work we’re doing and to share ongoing reports on our progress.

Over the last 9+ years, we’ve analyzed a ton of data to know what works and what doesn’t work in SEO. From authority link building and content creation to contextual link building and guest posting, we keep your site growing to increase brand awareness and increase your ability to outrank your competitors. 

Do I Really Need SEO?

Have you ever questioned whether or not you need to invest in SEO or if you can simply hold off until your company grows? This is a common question that we have heard all too often when talking with business owners.

SEO is a legitimate strategy for driving traffic to your website, ultimately increasing leads and conversions. But, unlike paid advertising, SEO takes time to be implemented properly. There are no shortcuts, no cheap tricks, and no easy answers. As a result, we recommend starting SEO as soon as you are able to.

Obviously, as an SEO marketing company, we’re going to tell you the same thing that every other agency does: SEO takes time. It takes time to research your market and niche. It takes time to run analyses on your existing site. Most of all, it takes time to produce quality content.

And that’s just on our side of things. It can take as little as 2 to 6 months for search engines to recognize your website. But, it can take as long as 4 to 12 months to begin seeing results. 

So, how can you tell if your SEO services are working? Simple, hold them accountable and look for real structure. 

Snake Oil vs. Structure

As consumers, we’ve all been subjected to marketing hoaxes at one time or another. From quick-fix diets promising results in a week to MLM schemes disguised as the next million-dollar idea, we’re all familiar with these kinds of products and services. Being enticed by such offers is an inclination we’re all familiar with. The same can be said for SEO.

While we would love to tell you every agency has your best interest at heart, that’s just not the case. With so many individuals and agencies claiming (and subsequently failing) to take websites to the top of Google’s search results overnight, it’s easy to see how the industry as a whole can seem like a sham. This cycle of distrust can quickly disillusion any small business owner. 

Generally speaking, marketing agencies fall into one of two camps when it comes to SEO — those that follow best practices and deliver tangible results and those that make empty promises and advise you to just “trust” that their services are working. The most important thing to remember is that a reputable marketing agency will never guarantee a specific ranking on search engines. If they do, stay away. It is impossible to deliver on such a promise (even Google says so).

Bottom line: a reputable marketing agency will never tell you to just “trust” in the process. A quality SEO firm is going to show you what they’re doing and provide feedback for recommendations. 

Our Approach

At Harris & Ward, we employ a two-prong approach to achieve success with our clients. First, we identify areas you’re already doing well in and reinforce those with a safe, diversified, link building strategy. This will help build the foundation for the second part of our approach — competitive research. 

To ensure we’re growing your presence in the search results, we use advanced competitive research to find what’s missing from your site including high volume, low competition, valuable keywords. Once these are identified, we’ll do the heavy lifting to build out relevant, well-researched content designed to gradually increase your rankings in these new areas.

5 Important Questions to Ask an SEO Agency

While it may never seem like the “right” time to start SEO, a good rule of thumb is to pair these new services with a site launch or redesign. By doing this, you and your SEO team can ensure that your site is designed to be search engine-friendly from top to bottom. But, how can you tell if you’ve found the right agency for the job? 

Easy! Treat the hiring process as you would for any other employee. At the end of the day, the agency you hire is going to be a crucial part of your team. Here are 5 questions to consider when hiring an SEO firm:

1. Can you show me examples of your previous work and share some case studies?
2. What is your experience with businesses in my niche?
3. Do you offer other marketing services to supplement organic search business?
4. What kind of results do you expect to see, and in what timeframe? How do you measure your success?
5. How frequently can I expect to communicate with you? 

Though every relationship you enter into will always carry a certain risk, asking these crucial questions can help you understand which “camp” your prospects fall into and what you can expect from them. 

To learn more about Harris & Ward’s SEO services, contact us today!