Why online business listings are crucial for businesses?

The internet and digital media have an enormous impact on the success of businesses in today’s scenario. Still, many entrepreneurs are unaware of business listing and its importance in recent times. Well, good marketing is to reach out to your broadest target audiences as soon as possible and increase your customer base. These business listings are very much efficient in achieving it. 81% of consumers go online before heading out to the store- GE Capital’s customer’s research study. According to this research, “An online research plays a bigger role throughout the purchasing process, 60% of consumers start by visiting a search engine, then go to the retailer’s website, and ultimately, 88% made their final purchase in-store.” This signifies the huge penetration level of the internet and digital media in the business world. Thus, for every marketer, it is very essential to understand the importance of business being found online.

In this article, we are going to explain-

• What do you mean by business listings?
• Try to understand the meaning of  the online business directories and their forms
•  Few important things one should take care of while doing online business listings.
• The importance of business listings.

Business listings

Let us begin with the business listings. In simple words, it is the contact details of your business listed online, which provides you with an opportunity to present your business to a wide range of people instantly. Moreover, it is mostly free!!!

local Business listings

A  local business listing  is an online profile that contains your business name, address, phone number, and some other details (NAP).  Many websites and directories allow local business owners to create free business listings. Some popular names in this domain are Google My Business, Yelp, Bing Places, Internet Yellow Pages, and Yahoo! Local.

Business Directory

The business directory is an online directory that contains the list of businesses within a particular niche, location, or category. It provides an online platform where local businesses can get found by online searchers. It has two forms 1. General multiple niche directories – It includes listings across a wide variety of business categories, not specific to any particular niche or industry. Google My Business is its best example. 2. Specific niche directories – This directory contains a narrower range of business types specific to certain industries, niches, subjects (or sometimes regions). Niche directories may also specialise in targeting particular audiences or groups, such as other businesses. B2B business directories like Business Network are a good example of these. As the name suggests, multiple niche directories like Google My Business has a huge overall amount of traffic and are mostly the beginning point for people searching for businesses online whereas specific niche directories usually have a low traffic, but the serious one. The quality of traffic is often better. They have a good conversion rate, as they focus on one or only a few specific areas.  But it is always advisable for businesses to take advantages of both types of directories. Getting listed on the big directories, as well as a few more specific niche directories relevant to their industry. Make sure your presence is everywhere so that your potential customer can find you easily.

While doing online business listings there are few things to be taken care of and they are as follows-

• Up to date NAP-

It is always required while adding or updating your business on multiple business listing sites,  make sure you are providing the exact company information details across each directory.

• A link to the website

Backlinks- also known as inbound links -Are crucial to your company’s website domain authority. By adding a tracking link at the end of this URL allows you to see how much traffic your website specifically gets from the business directories that are linking to it.

• Genuine Company Description

Make sure you put a genuine detailed description of your business that reflects your organization’s mission, culture, and values.

• Proper use of multimedia

A visual taste of your business with a picture or video of your office, your employees, or your daily business operations enhances the engagement rate with your target customers.

Undoubtedly, Online Business listings on different platforms are always beneficial. Here are some factors why-

• Help in improving online presence-

Business listings on different local directories make the way easier to increase your reach online and also make it convenient for clients and prospects to find you quickly. Hence, business listings are an excellent way to amplify your business visibility.

• Definitely boost website SEO-

SEO is getting complex every time as google has been changing its algorithm frequently . So, it is really difficult to figure out how one can improve its SEO. But whenever search engines like Google crawl the web, they look for mentions of your business’ name, address and phone number (NAP). So, having the correct information across the many platforms and sites indicates the Google algorithm a genuine online presence which provides a better opportunity for a business to get a high rank in search results.

• Attract more traffic by mobile optimisation-

Online directory websites are usually optimised for the smartphones experience. The benefit of this feature is that more and more people are searching for a local business using smartphones. This way it made businesses more visible by attracting more traffic to the listing and increase the chances of a user staying on the website for longer.

• Help in increasing brand visibility –

Business listings on local business directories may help to strengthen your brand profile because it not only limited to just the business name, address, and phone number rather it includes many contents like videos, photos, company logo, and many more which enhances promising brand visibility.

• Can improve brand reputation-

Local business listings also offer the feature of customer reviews and share their experience about the product or service. More good reviews and more good star rating can help you uplift your brand reputation. According to a survey pointed out that around 90% of consumers read online reviews before making any purchases . This means that if your business is not getting any reviews, you will not be able to draw the attention of your potential customers regardless of the quality of service or products you offer.

• Improve social media engagement-

Local business listings are also great for cross-promoting social media platforms. One can attach Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Linkedin etc. This allows you to grow as a brand and raise awareness. It can work as a free marketing and advertising strategy when you will utilize tweets, posts, and pins to create brand awareness and promote a product(s).

• Making more connections-

Business listings also provide a great chance to make connections with influential partners. To grow your business, you must require enough resources to back up your plans. Increasing your company’s profits is an indirect result of using directory listings, as online directories help more clients discover your brand, increase your engagement rates on social media, and generate reviews for your business, you will observe that you are easily making more profits after a few months of using these listings websites. By including all the above-mentioned factors, it is very much obvious that the scope of Business listings are not merely limited to connecting your business to the hubs that link companies and customers. Instead, they are also providing the most potential marketing and expansion tools for business owners. It facilitates you with an enormous open platform to broaden your customer base and generate more income by using these fantastic business listings websites. Having such a great impact on the success of the business, one should definitely leverage these listing directories to take their company to reach new heights