Greetings!
Search engines are the
primary source of information look-up for a great majority of people. Yet
despite the fact that search engines and the Internet have reshaped how we
find most of our information and what options are available for conducting
commerce, 95% of commerce is still transacted offline. This is known in
marketing as ROBO: Research Online, Buy Offline.
The goal of search
engines is to provide relevant information in response to their users' queries.
To this end, they gather and compile data on business locations, including
address and phone number, and (when available), the products and services
offered at these locations.
The problem is, there
are lots of business locations, but there is not a lot of detailed data
available anywhere about those locations. Adding to this problem is the fact,
while basic address and phone number data for many businesses is available in
many places online, this data is often inaccurate and out of date. Search
engines simply try to do the best the can with the fragmented data they can
find. Unfortunately, the old axiom "garbage in, garbage out" is true more often
than not. The result is that search engines are often displaying outdated
information about your locations. Even worse there are many queries made by
consumers that should return your business listings but don't, simply
because the search engines don't have reliable data indicating what products
and services are offered at your locations.
There is a solution to
this problem. Search engines allow you to "claim" your business listings and
take control of the data they contain. This is when the local listing
transformation process begins in earnest. Where 2 Get It manually claims the
listings for your locations on the major search engines. While it is a
relatively labor-intensive effort, it is clearly the business listing tactic
that offers the most reliable return on investment.
Here's How Manual Submission Works:
Manually claimed
listings are granted the highest "trust factor" by the search
engines, and the data entered via this method is given priority over any other
data source. This method also contributes to consumer trust, as the listings
are generally labeled as "Verified" and the data contained in the
listings is often labeled as "Provided by the Business Owner".
Benefits of manually claiming a listing include:
- Ability to edit/add supplemental data
fields
Access to reporting for that listing
This is data directly from the search
engines about how your listings are displayed on their results pages.
Powerful stuff!
- Prevent your listing from being hijacked
Ability to create coupons for that location
Some of the supplemental
data fields include:
Email address
Business Description
Business Categories
Hours of Operation
Payment Options
Photos
Videos
Custom Fields (Brands, etc.)
Call or email your Client Services representative so they
can help you get found!
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