In a recent poll of more than 350 small businesses, Constant Contact was able to confirm that more than half do not bother to update their online business listings.
The survey uncovered some interesting information from these small businesses including the fact that most don’t feel they have the time to deal with the work involved in taking care of the business listings (even though they have seen inaccurate information about themselves online) and others still don’t understand the importance of these listings to their business.
Businesses that fail to invest time and resources into to claiming, correcting or maintaining business listings are missing out on valuable online content opportunities. Google has said that about 20 percent of searches are associated with the searcher’s location and local business information. Additionally, between 40 percent and 50 percent of mobile searches are about local information or location. This is a relatively easy fix to boost your business profile.
What do you do? SEO companies often offer listing work as a part of their services knowing that it is a time-consuming and tedious process and it seems clear that most small business owners avoid it for that reason. Others will hire an in-house employee to do this work as well as social media management for the business. Either way, it is an opportunity that should not be ignored. The negatives to not being found or being found with incorrect information far outweigh the investment in time or a little money to stay current online.
Boston Web Marketing offers this work as a part of its comprehensive SEO package
By Don MacMelville