Within the world of local search advertising, there are great tools out there to automate all of the submission to local search engines, social media networks an internet yellow pages. The question
comes up then, how far can this automation take you? What role does it play in the overall optimization package for local SEO?
The process we have developed and has worked for our client is the following 6 week process.
The first step in this process is to claim existing business through the three major search
engines, Google, Yahoo and MSN local, verify the information and fill in the profile to be as complete as possible ensuring that all of your business information, specifically business name, address, and phone number are correct and consistent for each location. Get listed in Google’s Local Business Center.
The second step is to take that standardized information and submit it following data providers and data pushers. Submitting your data to multiple locations will only help increasing the number of citations you have for your business.
Here are the 3 major data provider to consider.
InfoUSA – To get listed with InfoUSA and other huge databases, you must post your business name to Universal Business Listing. Submission is starts at $30 a year. It is our experience that you should not have Universal Business Listings syndicate to Google or Yahoo for you, because—well we can talk about that in another blog post, just opt out of that and submit to the search engines manually and optimize your site separately.
Data is due by the 5th of each month to be pushed out by the 8th.
Localeze – Basic submission to Localeze is free if the business is on a very tight, however we recommend upgrading to the enhanced listings for $100/year per location. Deadline for changes is the 15th for any updates or new listings you want to promote.
Best of the Web – A directory, BOTW features categories (much like the Yahoo! Directory, in which you should also get listed, and which also costs something to join). The cost for submission is $99.95 a year or a $299.95 one-time charge. Use the “Submit Site” link to add your site to the directory.
Once you claim your local business listings and submit your business to the data providers you can watch your information propagate, but may take 4 weeks before you continue onto step 3.
Step 3 in the process is to manually claim these businesses on the various Internet Yellow pages
and local social networks so that you can begin to interact with the traffic from those sites. Tracking your traffic tightly will uncover sites which convert visitors into leads and many of the local internet yellow pages and local social networks have advertising programs which can additional boost your prominence on the local sites.
Just those 3 steps are going to take you a long way in the local search verification of syndication and taking advantage of these automated sources will save businesses hours and hours of time and help keep the business information consistent.
Thank you for another great post.
I look forward to many more entries with high quality info.
See you again soon!