Happy New Year! If improving your Google-My-Business Profile is not on your digital marketing to-do list, I strongly suggest that you add it. If you have a brick and mortar business or even if you are strictly ecommerce, your business still needs to have a Google My Business Profile.
Improve Your Brand Visibility
As part of increasing your brand’s visibility strategy, your business needs to be listed on most online directories. Google is #1, and Facebook is #2. If you depend heavily on local business, then getting your business listed is very important. It would be best to have an accurate and consistent listing on these online directories that will impact how your business ranks during local searches.
How Online Directories Help With Local SEO
Having consistent information, such as your business name, address, phone number, hours of operation across the different online directories affirms the credibility of your business, both for Google and to your prospects. That helps your website rank higher in search engines because as you build trust, your rankings on search engines will rise.
Search Engine Journal says that online directories does help credibility and traffic. There are many online directories. If you’re a restaurant, it makes sense to be on Yelp, Uber, and Foursquare. If you’re a builder, landscape contractor, or interior designer, it may make sense to be on Houzz as well as on Google Local Search. If your business is an e-tailer – online directories will benefit your ecommerce business by providing inbound links, capturing searches that are looking for products/services and reviews.
Search Your Business Online
The best way to find out how your local business information ranks is to perform an incognito search for your business. Does your website show up? Your social media channels? Your Google my business profile? Is your Google My Business profile complete? What do your reviews say? Are they mostly positive? Are you responding to your reviews? Not responding to your reviews can affect your rankings and conversions.
Why Do Reviews Help Your Local SEO?
When Google algorithm assesses a website, one of the goals is to measure what is called E-A-T: Expertise, Authority and Trust. In measuring Trust in E-A-T, Google reviews play a key role. Reviews from a “real life local customers” signal to Google that your business has that “trustworthiness” that the algorithm is looking for. It is not just “Google Reviews” – there’s Facebook Reviews, Yelp Reviews, and any other online directories that offers reviews – you want to keep them all positive. All of your reviews are assessed and measured by search engines for rankings and conversions or foot traffic to your business.
Why does it influence your rankings?
- Local customer reviews build trust.
- Good customer ratings drive more traffic. According to BrightLocal, 57% of your consumers will only use a business if it has 4 stars or more.
SCS Digital Marketing offers online directory listing service for small business and hemp e-tailers. You can download our online-directory package to get started.
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