Most SMBs Don’t Stay Current with Local Listings

Allison Howen — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 17:35:00 GMT

A new study from Constant Contact’s local discovery platform, SinglePlatform, reveals that even though 85 percent of small businesses (SMBs) believe it is important for their company to be discoverable on major search sites like Google, Yahoo and Yelp, less than half of SMBs actually update their online listings.

Perhaps the reason for the lack of updates is that, according to the study, 70 percent of SMBs say they don’t have time to manage listings on all of the sites that their consumers use. However, this poses a problem, because if businesses aren’t updating important information like hours and location, they will undoubtedly lose out on some potential customers who leverage search to find nearby businesses. In fact, the study notes that two-thirds of consumers use local search on a weekly basis, and that 70 percent of mobile searches lead to an action within one hour.

However, updating listing isn't the only problem, because the study also found that half of SMBs have seen inaccurate online listings for their company. This is why it is important for businesses to not only update their online listings on a regular basis, but also monitor their listings in order to ensure accuracy. One way that businesses can manage their online presence is with services like SinglePlatform or Yext. Both of these services help businesses get their correct information to appear in local search results on a variety of sites throughout the Web.

Other noteworthy findings from the study shed light on the growing importance of mobile for the small business sector. For example, 84 percent of SMBs believe that having a mobile-optimized website is important, while only 25 percent know how to create one. Moreover, 62 percent of the survey respondents also think it is important to be seen on major mobile applications. This is likely because more and more consumers are using mobile apps like Yelp on a regular basis to discover local businesses. In fact, earlier this week Yelp announced that more than 9 million users leveraged the company’s mobile app in January alone.

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.

'Net Features : yext

Most SMBs Don’t Stay Current with Local Listings

Powerful Local Listings from Yext PowerListings