Business directories such as Yelp, Yellow Pages, and Merchant Circle are important for developing a brand. New businesses, especially those that thrive on local attention such insurance agents, should create profiles in numerous directories. These local directories help boost local search visibility, improve SEO, and adds credibility to your business.
The long-term benefits of directories on your agency can be profound, but this is not a set it and forget it job. Business listings management is the foundation of an effective local SEO program. That means, maintaining clean and accurate data across all channels.
Why Business Listings Management Matters
Aside from the main business directories mentioned above, many more that could end up displaying your information. You might not have control over them all, but with diligent listings management, you can control the information at the source.
Ensuring that accurate data about your agency and its services show up online is crucial. Most people these days, search online for information about a company long before ever interacting with that company. During that critical research stage, much of the information people come across will be displayed by prominent business directories.
Business listings management is important because it maintains consistency between the information people find online and your company. If things like your name, address, and phone number are out of date, you will likely miss out on many opportunities. Someone coming across your company for the first time will not have confidence in your agency if they discover that your listed phone number is inactive.
Furthermore, inconsistencies with your business’s basic information can cause confusion with search algorithms. Google is clever, but if your listings have different addresses, telephone numbers, and addresses, it is difficult to associate it all with one business. It is likely that they will be considered as different businesses and that could be damaging to your SEO efforts.
Developing a Listing Management Strategy
Without a solid foundation for business listings management, your SEO efforts could be negatively impacted; your agency’s credibility could be diminished, and you may miss out on many sales opportunities. So, given their importance, it is a good idea to create a strategy for managing all your business listings.
One of the first things to consider is how you will ensure data consistency across all listing platforms. You will need to put a system in place that ensures search engines, like Google, indexes the correct information rather than pull incorrect data.
That system might include a regular schedule for pushing distributing data to your listing ecosystem. At a minimum, that should be a once monthly task. In addition to maintaining a regular schedule for data updates, you also need a system for spotting and suppressing outdated and duplicate listings.
Boosting Online Visibility
While few are prepared to admit it, most people have Googled themselves at one point. Whether through vanity or curiosity, we all want to know what information the search engines display about us. For insurance agents, checking Google to see what comes up is of paramount importance. After all, if you can’t find any info about yourself or your agency, neither can your prospects.
One of the primary benefits of business directory listings is increased exposure for your business. Gaining prominent visibility in local search results is important for insurance agencies, and business listing pages are often location specific. What’s more, they tend to rank high in the search results pages. That means, your business listing page will often outrank your website.
That makes business directories excellent vehicles for business promotion – and interestingly, most are free to use. The directories themselves also act as mini search engines. Visitors to sites like Yelp can type in keywords to find the businesses they require. You can also purchase additional features within the directories that yield greater exposure to searchers.
Without proper management of your business listing, however, all that visibility could be worthless. Worst still, it could be damaging to your agency. Incorrect or out of date information, as mentioned previously, is harmful to your brand.
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Online Directory Ratings and Reviews
Another key factor in business listings management is the all-important online directory reviews and ratings. Many of the top directories, including Yelp and Google, allow customers to leave reviews on a company they have patronized. The ratings and reviews are then displayed for others to see.
It should go without saying that negative reviews and low star ratings are a big turn-off for people. Most will not even bother to find out more about your agency if they see a low star rating under your listing. On the other hand, a listing with five-star ratings and glowing reviews will attract more interested prospects.
You can use this system to your advantage. On Yelp reviews, for example, you can ask satisfied clients to leave a rating and review. That will increase your directory credibility and platform prominence. At the same time, you must be proactive in ensuring that no negative reviews are added. You do that by handling customer complaints promptly and effectively.
The Business of Listings Management
Managing your business listings is not as complex as it may appear at first. You simply need to create a strategy and put some processes in place. For most insurance agents, basic information about the business and its services does not change often. Practicing good business listing management, however, helps to ensure that as your book of business gets bigger the work to maintain directory listings does not get forgotten.
