A local listing provides the first impression that many consumers will get of a brand. With ongoing listing management services in place, this initial encounter can be a positive experience. All too often, however, a failure to stay on top of updates inevitably leads to outdated contact information and incorrect opening hours—and a poor user experience. If your agency is providing local SEO to businesses, here’s why you need to regularly monitor listings.
Why Managing and Updating Business Listings Is a Must
It’s a common misconception (and wishful thinking) that local business listing management is a one-and-done event. Of course, your upfront work to create listings will certainly build a strong foundation for search visibility and customer trust. However, much of your client’s success will come from the ongoing management of these listings.
Business Listings vs. Backlinks
Backlinks are a cornerstone of SEO, signaling authority and credibility to search engines, and are considered votes of confidence for your website. While it might be tempting to view citations from business listings in the same light, there are important differences.
Google uses citations to verify the legitimacy of a business’ information. This is primarily the NAP data – name, address and phone number – along with other details like opening hours and services. Unlike backlinks (which can be effective even if left alone), business listings require ongoing management to ensure your information stays accurate.
Trust Matters to Search Engines
Anyone who has ever conducted a local business search will likely recognize the difference between a quality listing and a substandard one. When faced with no business description, a lack of reviews, missing opening hours and few or no images, both the search engines and the searcher will doubt the veracity of the data that’s presented. In short, these issues can absolutely harm your client’s trust with search engines. Follow our top strategies for building and maintaining local citations to resolve these problems.
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