7 Powerful Benefits of Using Local Listing Services

How many ways are there to market your business? There are countless ways to get your business out there, from going door to door to get your company all over social media.

One of the tried and true ways of getting found is to get into local directory listings. These listings can help your business get found when people are searching for your business. They can also help your business in a variety of ways.

Read on to learn more about the different local listing services and how your business can benefit from using them.

What is a Local Listing?

What is a local listing? Let’s travel back in time to the old days. Before the internet, people used phones that were attached to a wall.

They also had two massive books to find phone numbers and addresses. One was white and one was yellow. The white one had residential information so if you needed to call a neighbor because their kid beat your kid up, you could.

The yellow one was the one that you used for things like finding businesses in your local area. You could find anything from pool halls and bowling alleys to attorneys in this big book.

Once the internet came along, people stopped using the big yellow book to find information and turned to a place called Google to find businesses.

Google and other directories like Yelp, Angie’s List, and the Better Business Bureau all have their own directories. You don’t know which listings people will turn to, so you want to have your business found in as many as you can.

Local listing services can help your business manage all of those directory listings.

Benefits of Local Listing Services

Local listings are good for business because your business can get found online. Here are other key benefits to having local listing services.

1. Free Listings

If you wanted to get found in the big yellow book, your businesses needed to start with A or you had to buy a big ad.

Today, you can fill out directory listings for free and still get your business found. You may have to pay a nominal fee for listing services to manage your listings, but it’s well worth it.

2. Improve Search Rankings

When your business appears in search results you can improve your search rankings. It sends a signal to search engines that your business is legitimate.

It can also send backlinks to your site, which are another factor in determining search results.

3. More Visibility

The more directories your business appears in, the better. You can get free visibility for your business.

You do need to be careful because there are plenty of questionable directories that could do more harm than good. At first, you want to stick to the main online directory sites, chambers of commerce sites, and industry directories.

4. Higher Level of Consumer Trust

When your business is found online accompanied by a lot of positive reviews, you automatically build trust with consumers.

About 84% of people trust online reviews as much or more than a referral from someone they know. Reviews are a powerful way to build trust immediately.

5. Easy Access to Reviews

Speaking of reviews, they are very important to your business and they’re often attached to your local listings.

You don’t want to spend time managing your online reputation by visiting each and every directory site on a regular basis.

Local listing services give you easy access to your reviews. It’s easier to respond to negative reviews immediately, rather than letting a bad review just hang out there.

You can also thank customers for leaving positive reviews. Your responses to both positive and negative reviews show that you care about your business and you’re engaged with your customers.

6. Give Your Customers and Search Engine Accurate Information

One of the reasons why businesses don’t benefit from local listings is because they have their information spread out everywhere.

Over the years, they may have changed addresses, phone numbers, and even business names. Consumers and search engines can get thrown off if your listings don’t match.

The core of local listings is called NAP. No, that doesn’t mean it’s time for a nap. Rather, it refers to your name, address, and phone number.

These all have to be accurate and consistent across your website and local listings. A local listing service gives you one place to manage all of your local listings.

Your customers and search engines will be able to rely on that information as accurate and increase trust even more.

7. One Place to Manage Everything

You may have dozens of listings spread across dozens of different websites. Each time there’s a holiday, a change in business hours, or an update to your business, you have to go into each directory listing to update it.

Then you have to go back to regular hours when the holiday or event has passed.

That’s the benefit of having local listing services. You have one place to make your change and it gets taken care of. That saves you a ton of time and frustration.

Local Listing Services Make a Big Difference in Your Business

There’s no doubt that your business benefits from local listings. People can easily find your business when they already know your business name and want to look you up, and if they are looking for a service, but don’t know of a good service provider.

Using local listing services can make sure that your listings are accurate across multiple directories. The management and control over your listings are easy. You’ll make sure that nothing falls through the cracks and your customers don’t show up when you’re closed because you forgot to update a local listing somewhere.

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