Do you know if the information on your business listing is wrong?
Whether your listings are wrong or not, you should be able to answer that question definitively even if the answer is yes. The first step in getting things corrected is to understand if you have a problem Once you know there’s a problem then you can figure out how to correct the issue.
Business listings are essential for your business. Understanding if they’re wrong is the first step to getting them right.
How do you figure out if the information on your business listing is wrong, though?
How You Know If Your Listings Are Wrong
You have to make the effort to check your listings to find out if your information is wrong. There are many tools out there that will automate the process but they’re not all accurate. The tools available are a starting point only.
These are a few ways to check if your listing information is wrong.
Get An Audit
There are many websites on the internet that will do a free automated audit such as our free business listings scan tool. It will tell you how your listings look if they’re inaccurate, or if you’re missing important listings.
Once you have an audit of your business listings then it’s time to clean things up. Our business listings management software helps you automate that process and keep things clean and updated from one dashboard. It does more, though but we’ll stick to business listings.
So, go get an audit to see how your listings are doing and to make sure the information on your business listing isn’t wrong.
Check Google Business Profile (GBP)
Make sure your GBP listing is claimed and absolutely every piece of information is accurate (down to the period). That means you need to make sure the street is correct, abbreviations are correct, and everything is consistent with your business listings elsewhere on the internet.
Somebody tell this florist to claim their business! It’s essential for a business to survive. If your business isn’t claimed then it’s extremely vulnerable to tampering from competitors. Anyone can make a recommended change and Google will gladly accept it.
Even if your business is claimed there’s a chance that a competitor could recommend a malicious change. That’s why a service like Loclmark is better because it keeps your information locked in and immune to these types of malicious changes.
Check Yelp
Just like GBP, make sure your Yelp listing is claimed, accurate, and consistent with the vital information. That is, your NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number) is consistent across Yelp and other online listing sites.
Another business that has an unclaimed listing, this time on Yelp. This is such a vital part of their business why is it unclaimed? This should never happen.
Either use a good service to claim all your listings and suppress duplicates (Loclmark would do nicely) or go claim them on your own. Either way, every business should be claimed with correct information.
This florist has a great rating but they’re so vulnerable to misinformation with an unclaimed business page.
What Is Wrong Information Doing To Your Business?
It’s costing you a lot of money, that’s what it’s doing. Among many other bad things, you’re losing business, trust, and a lot of money.
Every inconsistency among your main business information makes your business more confusing to search engines. This means they’re less likely to rank you high in search results that matter a lot to your business. That is, they matter a lot if you want your business to do well and grow.
Making sure your business is accurate and the main information is consistent is essential to every modern-day business. Nearly every consumer relies on the internet (from their computer to their smartphone) to find and or research a business.
That means incorrect information is making you look untrustworthy to consumers or worse, preventing them from finding you altogether. People aren’t patient when it comes to incorrect business information. If your business listings point them in the wrong direction, they’re not going to mess around.
You just lost a customer and a potentially big payday.
That’s what the wrong information is doing to your business.
Fix Your Business Listing Information
It’s simple to fix your business information. The money you will make with accurate and consistent business information is more than the cost of any listings management platform.
There are two ways to fix your business listing information.
- Update your business information yourself across all the important business directories across the internet. You’ll have to find any listings that are already out there and update them. You can also manually create business listings but be sure you’re also regularly monitoring and updating them. We have a list of 45 directories that are easy to add your business to.
- Use a business listings management tool such as Loclmark that lets you fix your business listings across all the important business directory websites all at one time. This is the easiest way and will save you tons of time. Not only that but it makes it easier to make updates (which you should be doing at least monthly) and will keep your listings locked in and always accurate.
You’ll get the best results with the second option and it will pay for itself every month. The choice is yours, though, but you can’t ignore business directories.
You have to choose one and actively manage your business online to be successful online.