Case Study: Small Business Listings

Don’t forget to dot your ‘i’s and cross your ‘t’s!

When it comes to adding your company to a search engine directory, like Google, Bing, or others, there’s a lot to be said for finishing the job. Google is the absolute when it comes to listing locally. Once a company has claimed its business and set up their listing, every other search engine picks it up, regardless of whether or not you’ve listed with them as well. Funny enough, when you look up your company through the other search engines, your Google listing is likely the most frequently returned. It’s important to get it right, as unfinished details can hamper your efforts. 

An example of this is can be found with a company who thought they had added their company to Google Places, but in fact had not quite finished the job. After enjoying a moderate rise in rank through our SEO efforts, they began to plateau and soon were outranked by a competitor who had several poor reviews and less than optimal website standards. The first company should have had no problem outranking this second company, as we later found out, had Google details been completed.

• Keywords are important – This is an ideal way to be found, so some research in this area is extremely helpful. Google allows you to craft four or five custom categories once you select from their main category. Using keywords associated with your business in the categories sections will ensure that your company is found by consumers looking for you. Strong keywords within your descriptive text, woven-well with actual value for the consumer, are crucial. Stuffing words for spider-sake that hold no value for people is absolutely pointless because this local listing service is human driven. Poor word use looks terrible and will more likely turn off your viewers.

• Location has an appropriate place – If a location is included in your company name, that’s one thing, but if you stuff locations into your company name that don’t belong there, you’re going to be disappointed. Your business may either be turned down or penalized by Google.

• Make sure you verify your company – If you don’t take that extra step at the end, your listing won’t be finalized. That means that everything you’ve just done, and it is somewhat time consuming, is for nothing. Google allows you and invites small businesses to take advantage of their local business center, now called Google Places. They will find a return for your company when a searcher uses certain terms to look for you, whether or not you’ve claimed your business. If you haven’t, you’re at the mercy of the results they find.

By claiming your business and filling out the information to your benefit, you’re given more authority as a business owner than if Google simply returned your company link for comments or social media encounters, which can happen! Take control of your online appearance by fully completing your information, or hiring someone to do that for you. Repairing the mistakes made by company # 1 made a difference immediately, and the business owner didn’t even realize those things had been left incomplete. Remember to dot your ‘i’s and cross your ‘t’s to get the most out of your small business listings.