Discover Why Online Business Listings Matter for Your Website

If you’ve been anywhere in the digital world, you might have heard the mention of citations a time or two. But whether they apply to your business or not may seem more elusive. So let’s explore what online business listings are and then discover why they are vital for your website.

Local business listings or citations act as a summary of your essential business information. This data provides a powerful means for your customers to find your business online and in real life.

What is NAP Data?

Citations include NAP data about your company. NAP is an acronym that stands for Name, Address and Phone Number. Online listings will always have your NAP data along with your website URL.

This information serves the purpose of supplying the main essentials necessary for your potential clients or customers to research, find, and contact your business.

Typically, business owners can add other bits of business data, including hours of operation, business descriptions, and photos.

Are Citation Listings Effective?

Business listings are only as useful as the accuracy and consistency of the information a company provides. Social media sites, search engines, online directories, and maps offer companies the opportunity to list their business information publicly.

The more listings published online, the better potential customers can find your business. Why? Because these listings increase your presence and brand awareness across multiple authoritative channels online. That means more ways that your customers can find you!

But there is a caveat. Having a strong presence only works if the listings provide accurate information about your business. For best effectiveness, listings must be consistent and have completely accurate data on every site you publish them on.

Examples of Citation Sites

The following high domain authority sites provide excellent listing opportunities for business citations:

Apple Maps
Facebook
Google
Yelp
Bing
Four Square
Yahoo
BizJournals
Superpages
Thumbtack

What Are the Benefits of Relevant Online Business Listings?

Paying attention to detail on your business listings truly benefits your efforts. Customers Can Find You.

Just like the billboards that dot the urban landscape and cross country highways, your online listings act as digital billboards to draw consumers to your business.

Incorrect Information Can Hurt Your Business

If consumers search online and find incorrect or missing information about your business, they may feel less confident about your brand. This lack of brand trust may lead them to choose your competitor.

Consumers also search online about businesses before visiting them in person. Often, they may check your location hours before coming to your brick and mortar location.

Listings also supply information about your brand that visitors may use in company reviews. A good reputation online is vital in today’s marketplace. Customers want to tell others about their experience, and your potential buyers seek out this information. If you don’t have any listings online, then potential customers have no way to evaluate whether or not they want to do business with your company. Reviews provide transparency about your services and products while they also increase your company’s online visibility.

Ranking Boost: An Added Benefit

Accurate and consistent online business listings, along with positive reviews to boost a company’s visibility, also offers another benefit to business owners. It can help boost your local search results. SEO or search engine optimization is another tool in the online arsenal. Accurate business listings increase visibility and website traffic and work together to help with your site’s SEO needs.

Increasing your brand visibility brings new prospects and customers to your website. Take time now to make sure your business NAP matches your website, social media, and other online channels.

Citations are the necessary foundation for successful digital marketing strategies. NicheQuest can help you determine how visible your brand is online and whether you need to add online business listings to your marketing mix. Call us today (203) 762-1366.

Why Doesn’t My Business Show Up on Google Maps? Discover 3 Top Reasons

Google My Business Optimization Nichequest

Google Maps plays a vital role in increasing traffic to your business website. A business listing with Google helps you gain visibility in local search results and also in Google Maps.

If you’ve been searching your business name on Google Maps and it isn’t showing up, it’s likely due to a few common and explainable reasons.

Question: Why Doesn’t My Business Show Up on Google Maps?

Here at Niche Quest, we find that when our clients experience this issue, it is due to a lack of ranking power in local Google search results or in the map itself.

If your business lacks citations, organic rank, and branding within search, this can lead to a lack of results in Google Maps.

Conversely, if you rank high in organic search results and have brand dominance across social media and search results, it’s possible to find that your ranking power will often extend to your Google map listing.

Although this isn’t always the case, when our clients contact us to find out why their business isn’t showing up on Google Maps, it’s one of the first places we check. Focused attention on the Google My Business listing and Google maps generally helps to bring the listing into view both in maps and in the map pack on Google’s front page.

Top 3 Reasons Your Business Is Not Showing in Google Maps

Reason #1: Google Verification – Does your business have a verified GMB listing?

The first issue to check is whether you have a verified Google My Business listing. One way to determine its verification status is to do a search on Google Maps for your company name.

Go to Google Maps and enter your company name.

You will discover results like this listing below:

Notice the red arrow pointing to “Claim this business.” If this phrase shows on your Google Maps search, it means it isn’t a verified listing.

So, in this example image below, this business owner does have a verified GMB listing, but they do not have a verified Google Maps.

Verified & Non-Verified GMB Listing Differences

Can you tell the difference in the two listings above? Although the business displays in Google Maps and GMB listing, the “Own this business?” link in the Google maps profile is a red flag that the company doesn’t have a verified map listing.

What that means to the business owner is that their listing, although in the maps results, will probably not show up when potential customers search in their local area.

Common Question: How Do I Verify My Business?

Without verification, your business will not be eligible to appear in Google Maps local search. If your competition does have a verified listing, then it will push your unverified listing so far down in results that it is highly likely it won’t show up at all. Unscrupulous competition or other individuals may also try to claim your business in the listing so they can use it for other purposes. That’s why it is vital to claim your listing and verify it as soon as possible.

Business owners can start the verification process for the Google Maps listing by clicking on “Own this business.” Google will then send a postcard with a code to the listed business address for ownership verification.

Reason #2: Your Business Lacks Ranking Authority

Having a verified listing is essential, but pushing your listing to the top of the maps and Google search results requires additional steps. Of course, non-competitive markets may find examples of businesses that do show at the top of search results without any effort.

But in major metro areas and highly competitive niches and industries, a company may appear on pages 2, 3, or 4 for their highly-valued keyword phrases.

What do these businesses lack for successful results in the SERPs? Ranking power plus authority in their local markets.

What does this mean in simple terms? It means that when someone is near your business (on their cell phone), they will pick up your listing when they search. As they move away from your location, they will no longer find your listing.

As your listing gains ranking power and location authority, therefore, your business shows up in results further away from your business locale.

Ideally, your business will rank in areas far from your address so that you can reach a broader target audience in search results.

How Do you Rank Higher in Google Maps?

Ensure the information about your business online is accurate and consistent. That company information, also known as NAP data, includes:

Business Name
Address
Business Phone
Website URL

The above information must match your GMB listing exactly. If your business is ABC Company, then list the company name as ABC Company, not ABC Co.

Same for your street address. If your GMB displays your address as 123 Main St, then ensure each instance on your website, and anywhere online uses only 123 Main St and not 123 Main Street.

View the example below. This client’s name, address, and phone matches across multiple platforms online, including their website, maps, and GMB listing along with Yelp, Houzz, and Facebook.

Online Citations Help Local Businesses

Citations on third party sites are just as crucial to your company’s presence online as backlinks are for organic search position. They give brand authority and awareness that will help you gain the ranking power and location authority you need to dominate the Google Maps listing.

Examples of business citation sites include:

Bing
Facebook
Superpages
Yelp

Also, industry-specific citations on sites for specialized services are helpful such as findlaw.com for attorneys or houzz.com for contractors.

Reason #3: Your Google Listing is Suspended

When the worse possible scenario happens to a GMB or maps listing, it can send business owners into a panic! We’ve had business owners call us with all urgency to help them with a suspended listing.

When a GMB suspension occurs, the business no longer shows up in search, the GMB 3-pack, or maps. Any successful rankings also fall away.

Google My Business suspends listings for a variety of reasons, and it isn’t always apparent at first glance why a listing suspends.

Common reasons for GMB suspension include:

Business information edits or updates that require Google to verify the info.
Google questions whether the location is valid or listing is real. They want physical proof such as rental documents and pictures of the office.
Keyword stuffing in the listing or fake listing for lead gen.
Use of virtual offices or post office boxes
No physical business location.

Calling Google for help can often be challenging. Try to contact them directly from your GMB dashboard. If you have a GMB suspension and need help, please reach out to our team for assistance.

We’ve helped multiple business owners with pulling their GMB listings out of suspension. If your business is no longer showing in Google maps or if you don’t yet have a GMB listing, please contact us today (203) 762-1366.

Important Update for Local Service Businesses: Check Your Google My Business Listing

New Google My Business changes will affect local businesses and their GMB listings. Service-based businesses like contractors, plumbers, roofers, carpet cleaners and more need to update their GMB listing as soon as possible so as to provide accurate information to potential customers.

Previously, businesses would list their address and that was it. However, as of yesterday, there is a new line in the info dashboard that reads “Add service area.”

Prior to this update, companies that served customers in an area around their business address would set their service area as a distance from their business address. For example, as you’ll see in the screenshot below, a flooring contractor that services the Portland area and 75 miles around the city could select that in their local GMB listing.

Now when you log-in though, you’ll see the following update (see image below), which reads “Update to service area selection: Choose specific cities, postal codes, and other areas.”

Google isn’t allowing the mile radius any longer. Companies must choose how to present their business to visitors in one of three ways:

For companies that serve customers from a brick and mortar location, they enter their business address only.
Companies that don’t serve customers at their address will now leave the address field blank and enter their service area using either specific city names or postal zip codes.
Companies who serve customers at their business location plus have a service enter will use both fields – the address and service area fields.

For more details, visit the Google support page here:
http://www.nichequest.com/google-support

Additionally, some businesses already ranking in the 3-pack no longer have their full address on display, even though they do have their main address in their listing. With the new changes, service-area businesses probably aren’t aware of the need to change their settings to add the new service areas.

It will be interesting to see the effects on local businesses already ranking in GMB listing and maps. But either way, if you have a service area business, it’s time to add your service area specifics to your listing so as not to lose any traffic or visitors to your site.

Source: Google My Business Shakes up Service-Area Businesses: What Has Changed and What to Do

Free Small Business Workshop: Profit from Keywords

SEO Experts Wilton - Free SCORE workshop Wilton CT Profit from Keywords

Keywords play an important role in the development of successful digital marketing efforts. Without keywords, your website and social media posts stand little chance of ever being found on the internet. If your business website floats on an island of obscurity in the midst of the vast ocean we know as the internet, there’s a free SCORE small business workshop that will help you learn how to profit from relevant content and keywords designed to attract your ideal client.

You’re Invited:
Profit from Keywords
August 16, 2018 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Sponsors: SCORE, The Wilton Library, the Wilton Chamber of Commerce & the Wilton Bulletin
Where: Wilton Library, 137 Old Ridgefield Rd, Wilton, CT 06897
Presenter: Ed Winslow of Niche Quest Media

Find and Profit from keywords your customer searches on Google. Go through the process to find what your ideal customer wants and how to apply to your website, social media posts and videos.

Creating how-to guides will help your customers and position your business as an expert to give you a competitive edge.

What You’ll Learn

What are Long Tail Keywords? 70 percent of consumers search long-tail keywords to find what they want; they are the highest converting.
Using Uber Suggest Keyword Tool to Find Long Tails
How to Use Google Suggest
How to Utilize Amazon to Find Proven Demand in Your Niche
How to Find Demand on Facebook
How to Find Consumer Intent on YouTube

To register for the workshop, visit the Fairfield County event page here.

About SCORE

SCORE helps small business owners and entrepreneurs form, grow and succeed. Established in 1964 as a non-profit as counselors to small business, the organization offers 300 locations nationwide. It is a resource partner of the U.S. Small Business Administration.

The Fairfield County chapter of SCORE was recently voted the best SCORE chapter in America. It also consistently ranks in the top 5 nationally. Their mission is to provide “top quality mentoring and education to small business owners – and prospective owners” throughout their region. Find out more about Fairfield County SCORE programs here.

About Ed Winslow

Ed’s expertise stems from his experience as a broker and investor in Manhattan real estate with CBRE and Sotheby’s. With over 30 years of entrepreneurial experience, he formed Niche Quest Media in 2006. The agency specializes in online lead generation, search engine optimization (SEO), display advertising, Adwords and Facebook ads. Niche Quest has created multiple income-producing websites in the real estate, construction and healthcare care industries.

3 Key Factors for Digital Marketing Success

digital marketing services for business owners

Digital marketing can often leave you feeling overwhelmed especially if you’re new to using online strategies. The learning curve requires dedication to run a successful campaign. If you follow the 3 key factors below, you’ll be off to a great start!

1. Serve Your Customers First

By placing your customers’ needs first, you’ll transform your relationship and your own business.

It’s common for businesses to put their own needs first without even thinking about their customers. For best reach, connect with clients through multiple digital channels. But before releasing any digital content, you need to ask yourself what value it brings to the reader. Identify what your audience needs instead of guessing or putting your interests first.

If you offer content to address client needs and then offer a solution to fulfill those needs, then you’ll achieve greater results. Make sure to use a range of different digital channels to reach your ideal customer where they are online.

Social media and email marketing are core strategies you must implement for your business. These online tools will help you reach a wider target audience while you raise brand awareness at the same time.

2. Stand out from your competition

Digital marketing makes it much easier for small business owners to compete for market share. Businesses that dedicate time, resources and budget to digital marketing gain significant advantage over those that don’t. Due to the cost effectiveness of digital marketing, small companies may make their mark and even compete against larger, more established businesses.

For success in the online world, you must position your company to differentiate itself from competitors. To set your business apart from the rest, keep up with the latest digital trends, build a solid reputation and determine the best digital channels for finding and building relationships with potential clients and existing customers.

3. Monitor, measure and track digital marketing performance

One of the most common mistakes we find small business owners make when starting out with digital marketing is failing to monitor and track performance. You need to know what’s working and what isn’t.

If you’re using several different channels, you also need to know which ones offer a positive return on investment versus those that simply waste time and resources. By monitoring digital campaigns, you will be able to quickly identify any changes that need to be made and where you should be focusing your attention. It will really help to strengthen your overall strategy and ensure your efforts are rewarded.

NicheQuest offers digital marketing services to local businesses nationwide from our home office in Fairfield County, Connecticut. If you need assistance with developing an online plan of action for your business, give us a call at (203) 762-1366.

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Boost Your Social Media & Content Marketing With These Tips

What content marketing strategy are you using for your online presence? Is there a plan in place to share your content on other sites besides your own?

If not, read on to learn how you can integrate social media and content marketing together to create massive traffic and potential leads to your website.Continue reading

Google Did What? Upcoming Update May Affect Your Site

It’s not just taxes you have to dread in mid-April this year. Courtesy of Google, all business owners with non-mobile-friendly websites will need to update them by April 21st or potentially lose their ranking. If you rely on your website for new leads and/or customers, you definitely want to pay attention! Continue reading

3 Local Search Marketing Tips: Bing Places for Business

Local Search Marketing with Bing Places for Business

Many small business owners today are looking for cost-friendly ways to accomplish their internet marketing goals. By getting your contact information in front of online customers, you gain the advantage of ensuring that those customers find your products and services.

If you’ve followed the results businesses are having on Google Places, then you are probably already aware of the advantages of using free search engine tools to optimize your local listings. Like Google’s offering, Bing Places for Business provides a quick and easy method to claim and verify your business on the Bing platform.

Here are three local search marketing tips to help you get the most out of the Bing Places listing for your business:

1) Keep Your Contact Information Uniform

In order to get the most from your listing on Bing Places, you want to make sure you are consistent with your contact information. It should be uniform across every platform where you advertise your business. That means your Bing Places listing should use the same address and contact data as your website, offline ads and other search engine listings. Accuracy in your online details helps build trust, and you don’t want to do anything that could negatively affect your local search ranking.

2) Optimize Your Bing Places for Business Listing

After providing accurate name, address and phone number, you must also properly optimize your Bing Places listing using categories and images.

Bing Places for Business Categories
Assigning the right category to your business will ensure that your listing comes up when a client looks for your products or services. You may wish to add more than one category and/or subcategory. So for instance, if you’re a general contractor that also works in concrete, excavation and electrical, you’ll add each of those categories in addition to the general contractor category.

Business Images
Adding images also helps to optimize your listing page. Bing allows up to 10 images. Companies that add photos offer customers a visual of their facility, products or work. It also improves your company’s image and affects your search results positively.

3) Request Customer Reviews

Customer reviews also show up on your Bing Places listing. Although you have no control of reviews that show up on your profile, having reviews does help attract new customers, improve local search results and build your company reputation. Be proactive in asking for reviews from your clients. When you know you’ve provided great service or helped a customer solve a problem, don’t miss the opportunity to ask them to leave a review for your business online.

Search engine local tools such as these place listings are an excellent place to start focusing on local search results. It’s free so you’ll save your online marketing dollars for other strategies, and you’ll also find that Bing Places will help your global search results as well.

Top 3 SEO Tips for Insurance Agents

Search Engine Optimization Tips for Insurance Agents

Search engine optimization (SEO) for insurance agents is all about taking action to make sure that your business is easily discovered by your prospects. Without SEO, your website won’t achieve much in the way of bringing traffic and customers to your business. The insurance market is very competitive, and you stand at the risk of your site resting in obscurity if you aren’t proactive about making sure it ranks for the appropriate keywords. Not to worry. Here are three top search engine optimization tips you will find quite helpful in your quest to fully develop your insurance niche site.

SEO Tip #1: Go Long Tail

Because of the high competition for major insurance keywords, you’ll need to find keywords that other agents or agencies are not targeting. One method by which you can achieve your aim will be through the use of long-tail keywords. For example, it may be hard for you to rank well for the keywords “auto insurance” or “car insurance.” You would be competing up against many of the top players in the insurance market including major insurance companies and brokerage houses. However, if you choose long-tail keywords such as “car insurance in Surprise Arizona” or “Surprise Arizona auto insurance,” you’ll find that you’ll achieve better ranking and search engine results. Once you select the right low-competition keywords, you then must ensure these search terms are optimally used in your meta data and articles.

SEO Tip #2: Create Quality Content

High quality, informative blogs and articles play a vital role in your search engine optimization efforts. It’s possible you’ve already realized the strength of creating engaging content for your sites and have implemented a content marketing strategy to increase your web presence. In the past, many internet marketers and website owners utilized keyword-stuffed and poorly-written posts in order to fool the search engines into ranking their sites higher. But not anymore. Major search engines like Google consistently update their algorithms to weed out shoddy websites that do not offer any true value to internet users. That makes it increasingly important to ensure that you produce high-quality content written specifically for your readers and not for fooling the search engines. Consistency is truly key for content strategies. Post on a regular basis, and you’ll discover that quality content will keep your site visitors coming back for more.

SEO Tip #3: Use Social Media

Gone are the days where social media sites are used only for staying in touch with friends and family. Business owners everywhere are tapping into the power of social media. Use Google+, Facebook and Twitter along with other social media platforms to improve your insurance business. Interesting posts and videos attract users on social media. These prospects learn about your business on social media sites and then to convert to customers as you engage them in discussions about how your product fills their needs. Videos also provide a means for further customer engagement. You may create tutorials to attract clients, and then use links from social media sites to help generate more traffic and increase your search engine visibility.

These SEO tips offer just a few ideas to help you take your insurance agency to the next level in increasing website traffic and bringing in new customers. Let us know in the comments below what search engine optimization strategies you use within your agency to develop new business and improve your website results.

Celebrate Small Business Week with Google

National Small Business Week is here again! This Small Business Administration (SBA) annual event celebrates small business owners and entrepreneurs along with the important contributions they make to the economy. Not to be left out of the celebration, search giant Google decided to use the week to celebrate and thank the “the dreamers, doers, shakers, and makers” in its own unique way.

There’s no doubt that small businesses play a vital role in the United States economy. According to the SBA, more than 50 percent of the entire American working population is involved in some way with small business activities. They either own a small business or work for one. In fact, two out of every three new jobs come from small businesses. To help boost small business success even further, Google announced the launch of the Google Small Business Community and a new Google Helpouts page for small business owners. These sites are expected to enhance networking opportunities and make useful information easy to access.

Small Business Week and Google Communities

The Google Small Business Community operates on the Google+ social network. It is a wonderful place to make new business connections and share business ideas. The Community is free to join and the number of members has steadily increased since its launch.

Check out the community events from May 12 to May 16 for special messages including one from President Barack Obama. The site also plans to feature useful tips from top businesspeople across a range of industries. Already, business owners are introducing themselves in the community using a variety of hash tags such as #SmallBusinessWeek, #SmallBusiness and #SmallBusinessOwners. You’ll definitely want to use one of these hash tags in order to improve the visibility of your business and engage other small business owners in the process.

Even after National Small Business Week, the community will continue to be the source of helpful information. According to the blog Google and Your Business, training ideas such as daily and weekly posts, series and training will come from what business owners decide they want to learn. Googlers and an advisory team will also be available to handle all your questions.

Helpouts Page for Small Businesses

The Helpouts Page provides an avenue for small business owners to access individual consultations with business experts. These consultations will take the form of video calls. There are expert advisors on a variety of business topics including web design, online marketing, WordPress, bookkeeping and branding.

While there are plenty of Helpouts offered without any charge, you will need to pay to have access to expert opinions in others. Identifying free Helpouts from paid ones is easy. Rates are clearly posted and differ based on the expert offering the consultation. Some sessions use per-minute rates while others charge flat rates. Additionally, Helpout rates may also depend on the level of individual expert’s skills, which you will find outlined in the session description. If you join the Google Small Business Community between May 12 and 16, you’ll also be eligible to get $20 off a Helpout of your choice.

Discover Why Online Business Listings Matter for Your Website