'Net Features : local business listings

Google Updates Local Listing Guidelines

Michael Garrity — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 18:25:00 GMT

Google has updated its local business listing guidelines to include support for individual departments within hospitals, universities, local governments and, of course, businesses; that is, as long as each department has a unique phone number and “forward-facing presence.” This means that, for instance, a large clothing store’s Men’s Department can now be listed on Google separately from the rest of the store.

Some readers may remember that this “new” policy is actually a return to an original Google policy that changed around a year ago, and it should open up many opportunities for multi-department businesses.

In addition, this update will formalize a policy that has existed in Google Places, but not MapMaker, that officially allows practitioners with several offices/locations to have a unique listing for each one; however, they’re only listed for the hours that the practitioner is actually present and “directly contactable” at a specific location. Individual practitioners must also be public-facing about their relationships to their parent organizations. If these rules aren’t followed, the listing(s) could be rejected for non-compliance.

Powerful Local Listings from Yext PowerListings

Allison Howen — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 20:15:00 GMT

There are many things to keep track of when running a business now-a-days. Aside from normal, day-to-day operations, business operators also need to focus on Internet strategies such as local business listings, which can be a very time-consuming task.

Therefore, any tool that can help manage Internet business strategies in order to provide better time-management should be welcomed with open-arms in the business community – which brings us to Yext PowerListings, a platform that helps businesses manage and sync their local listings across a network of websites and mobile apps.

According to Yext, 6 percent of business listings change every month, which leads information to fall out of sync quickly – resulting in consumers obtaining the wrong information from local searches about 20 percent of the time.

PowerListings allows users to centrally control listings on more than 30 local search sites, including Yahoo!, Yelp, WhitePages, MapQuest, Superpages, Citysearch, Yellowbook, Local.com and Foursquare. The solution also guarantees a presence in the most possible local searches, the ability to track local search performance with full analytics, as well as includes enhanced listing capabilities for each site in its network – which provides the option to add photos, descriptions and promotions to listings.

Furthermore, Yext PowerListings Turbo, enables even quicker updates of a business’s information. Content such as photos, descriptions, hours and special offers are nearly instantly updated on participating Turbo partner sites.

"For a company with nearly 2000 locations, PowerListings 'Turbo' is an invaluable tool and time saver. For a small business where every visitor counts, incorrect listings can be crippling in terms of revenue,” says Howard Lerman, Yext CEO. “Getting this right will be a huge win for any business with a retail presence, and for consumers most of all. PowerListings 'Turbo' is a leap forward in this direction."

The Yext network not only reaches more than 150 million visitors per month, but also reaches consumers on multiple platforms, including mobile apps and mobile sites. Packages start at $8.25 a month and reach $41.58 a month, which includes more than 30 PowerListing sites.

Manage Local Business Listings With New BRM From Localeze

Linc Wonham — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 12:41:00 GMT

An upgraded Web application from Localeze, the largest business listings directory provider for local search, is designed for businesses to better manage their local listings while delivering more accurate data to local search engines.

The new Business Registration Manager includes an updated design and interface that allows users to enhance listings with descriptive keywords and links. The BRM upgrade gives businesses complete 24/7 access to update, revalidate and manage their local search listings, and Localeze will now proactively notify clients of the status of their listings so they can provide corrective action.

Localeze currently manages 14.5 million local search business listings and distributes the data to more than 90 local search platform partners. More information on the BRM upgrade can be found at localeze.com.