Nothing can be more frustrating than doing a search for your business on google, yahoo, bing or even yelp and finding incorrect or outdated information about your business. Once you see it you want to get it changed right away right? Well in some cases it can be very easy if you have claimed your pages or created them yourself on those platforms. For most small businesses owners your probably thinking what are you talking about. So let me break it down. Most search engine sites which have your business listed will allow you to claim your listing which will allow you to manually update the content they have posted. If you have done soo you are ahead of the game, if you haven’t you will have some work to do.
Who needs to update or add their information online?
- Any New businesses
- Existing businesses that don’t have an online presence
- Business that have relocated or have changed their contact information or are planning to in the coming months
In today’s world it’s more important now than ever to make sure people can not only find you, but also that they have the correct information about your business including the address, your current phone number, email and website.
Information that you should update or keep up to date online
- Business Name, address and phone numbers
- Company Website very important
- Working Hours
- Products you offer
- Services you offer
- Payment Methods
- Business Specialties
- Social Media Links
Major platforms to update
- Google (Google My Business)
- Bing
- Yahoo
- Yelp
- YellowPages
- Whitepages
- Chamber of Commerce
- Foursquare
How do you update your business information online?
Well I would love to tell you that it is very simple and you can do it all at once, in some cases this is true, but it is very costly and only reaches specific sites. The problem is there are so many different platforms out there even beyond the ones listed above.
So what steps do you take to get your information updated? The first step is to claim the listing if you are able to from the major search engines. From there much of the information will be auto-generated to smaller directories or search sites.
Once you claim your site or business on the major platforms you will want to do the following:
- Update your business information manually. You will need to go to each and every site and add or update your information, request an update. If you claimed your business your changes should be updated automatically once you submit the changes.
If you are unable to claim your listing then you have your work cut out for you. One way around this which is the most costly is to use an automatic citation submission service such as yext.com or moz.com which will submit your information to many of the major websites at once. The major advantage is that you can update the information as much as you like in one place with out having to spend hours getting your businesses information updated.
Consequences of Not Updating Your Business Information on the web
If your looking to grow your business it is essential to have a good online presence. If you do not you will lose business or fail to attract more business. Did you know:
- When most people are searching online for specific business industries it is with a purchase intent, i.e., people search for services and products on their mobile devices with the intention of buying or using a service.
- people search for services and products on their mobile devices with the intention of buying or using a service and most online searches now a days are done on smartphones and 18% of local smartphone searches lead to a purchase within a day.
- Reviews, reviews reviews. Reviews are basically “word-of-mouth recommendations” which are online. Businesses with more reviews usually rank higher on search engines.
- Many business may have duplicate listing which can be very bad for your business. There might be auto-generated duplicate pages existing online, providing incorrect details about your business to potential customers, who in turn might contact the wrong phone number or visit the wrong address or worse be directed to the wrong website.
Benefits of Updating Your Business Information Across the Web
- An online presence with correct information about your business will allow potential customers to find your business products and services.
- Aside from from ads, an online presence is free publicity and is one of the best way to get your name out there.
- Having your information up to date across the web will help potential customers find you and show you are a reputable company.
- Be sure to to encourage customers to leave reviews of your business if they had a great experience which will help your business stand out from the competition.