Carl Jones from Local Manager explains how pet businesses can ensure their business appears at the top of local search listings online.
Forty-six per cent of all small animal searches online in Australia are related to local businesses. More than 80 per cent of these searches are ‘non-branded’. The customer has no brand in mind and is simply searching for terms like “vet near me’ or ‘animal supplements’. For these searches, the platforms display information they have in their own local business directory (maps) listings. Appearing at the top of these listings is essential to attract customers to visit your business or contact you if you if you don’t have a shopfront.
The Big Three Local Directory Platforms
Google has the largest audience via its search engine and maps app. Microsoft Bing has a strong B2B, government and healthcare audience. Apple has a high-income audience predominantly using iPhone services such as Apple Maps and Siri. The services all look very similar, and users often assume that they are using Google when they are actually seeing information from Microsoft or Apple. Businesses must manage all three.
Challenges with Data
The data in the listings is more than just basic name, address and phone number information. Google have 65 data elements that need to be kept accurate, Bing 33 and Apple 40. The platforms and/or any member of the public may ‘suggest an edit’ to your listing and you won’t be notified of the change. When you log in to your listing, you will see that these updates have already been published live to the public. You must revert the changes if they are incorrect. This requires business owners to check their listings very regularly.
Challenges with Reviews
Listing owners cannot disable or remove reviews. Owners must contact Google customer support and explain why an inappropriate review needs to be removed.
The Solution: Active Management
Here are some steps to effectively manage your online directory listings:
1. Claim Your Listings:
Start by creating an account and claiming your listings on the following three platforms:
– Google Business Profile > business.google.com
– Microsoft Bing Places for Business > bingplaces.com
– Apple Business Connect > businessconnect.apple.com
2. Check and Update Data:
Ensure that the data accurately represents your business. Be authentic and complete every data field. Frequently check your listings for accuracy.
3. Focus on Reviews and Ratings.
Reviews and ratings are important for two reasons. A high star rating creates customer trust in your business. The platforms rank businesses using review data; the business with the best reviews appears at the top of the listings.
If it is impractical to create and monitor your listings, and deal with reviews, consider outsourcing the management of your listing. This is possible by giving a manager like Local Manager access to your listings via the settings tab of each listing. The manager will be responsible for optimising the listings for best performance. You continue to own the listings, and the manager can be replaced or removed by you at any time.
Conclusion
By accurately adding data to all three platforms and focusing on reviews, businesses can get to the top of the local listings which will attract large volumes of new customers for the lowest possible cost compared to any other online activity.
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