When you want to create an identity for your business in the competitive online world, local business listing services can significantly help you. Local business listings improve your online visibility and are useful for promotion of your business website. In addition to that, a listing is far more cost effective as compared to printed or other promotional activities. Business listings allow your business to get indexed by search engines and help your company in increasing the page rankings of your website.
Yext is a service that lets you enhance your reach by listing your business on top business listing sites to climb the rankings in Google’s organic as well as local search results.
[leaderad]
Why are citations vital for your business?
Google and other search engines rank websites in their search results using various variables. The important ones among them are the quantity and quality of links to your website from other sites and the quantity and quality of sites where your business is mentioned.
If your aim is to be competitive with other companies that offer similar services, listing with a local directory is an excellent way. It helps you reach your targeted segment of audience as your customers will find you much easier. Online local directories provide easy access for information, particularly in locating businesses and service based professionals in the local area.
How to get started with listing your business?
Here comes the most important question: How to list my business in local business directories and on which directories?
Some of the popular online local directories include Yahoo! Local Listings, Bing, Yelp, CitySearch, MerchantCircle, Yellow Pages etc. which are used by Google and other search engines. Many businesses have no listing in the major directories but worse in the case, when businesses have inconsistent listings.
To Start Listing for Your Business, Yext is the service you should consider for.
Let’s understand what Yext can do for your business and how?
Yext is a technology company that allows businesses to update their business information on multiple websites. With their service, you will get a control on how your business listing will show up on popular local search websites with accurate and up-to-date information. You will also be able to include pictures, descriptions, special offers, coupons and more in your listings.
Yext’s PowerListings Network uses a special technology that makes all necessary updates in your business listings across more than 50 business listing websites. The business listing websites where your business is not yet listed, Yext will automatically add the listing. With their services, you are saved from manually updating correct information when errors come up. Yext helps small businesses to focus on their core products while saving their time and efforts in correcting business listings.
You might be thinking of doing the business listing work manually. Yes, of course, you can do it. But, it’s a tedious and complex process to keep a track of these listings. Before you start off yourself, let’s have a look at this comparison chart.
| Do-It-Yourself | Yext | |
| Finding Quality Online Directories | Yes, you need to find out online business directories | No, Yext has a powerful network of over 50 quality business listings |
| Number of listings | Varies from 30 to 40 | More than 50 |
| Time Required | 20-30 hours | Less than an hour |
| Updates | Need to do manually | Automatic |
| Benefits for local search rankings | Yes when you have quality business citations | Always Yes as you will get citations from high quality sites |
| Time taken to go live | Varies from few hours to several weeks | Instantly |
| Analytics tools | No such parameters | Yes, you can track the number of profile views listings are generating |
| Human Errors | Yes | No such errors |
| Scan your business | It is difficult to find out errors and missing listings | It is easy to scan your business with Yext |
| Running Special Promotions | Quite a cumbersome task | Easy and quick |
| Updating Business information | It is quite difficult to update business information manually on every business listing website | It is very easy to update your business information with Yext |
| Time taken to show up your business | It can take weeks or even months | With Yext, it generally happens instantaneously. |
Here are the top reasons that Yext is perfect for your small business:
- Easily manage your business listings
Hire Yext services and bid goodbye to outdated Excel files. There’s a single dashboard that allows you to manage each and every thing. - Update listings conveniently
You are saved from the hassles of updating business information on each business directory. With Yext, you can make changes to over 50 listings from the dashboard and guess what, the listings are updated immediately!! - No more Duplicates
Finally, you have found solution to duplicate listings. Yext deactivates duplicate listings and only the listings that you want go live. - Useful Analytics
You will get real-time analytics so that you can track how your customers are engaging to optimizing your listings and content. You can also track name clicks and profile views. - Get track of customer reviews
Yext helps you to find what customers are saying about your business. It monitors the reviews posted about its clients and notifies you when reviews including certain keywords are posted. You can click on “Reviews” tab on your Yext account and see reviews.
Wrapping Up
Remember using Yellow Pages to flip through hundreds of pages to find a local business? The use of Yellow Pages has declined over the years and people now search online to locate a business. Yext is the platform that lets business owners to publish correct information across the online network. They go a long way in helping businesses to reach their customers ranging from business citations to correcting errors to providing abundant analytics tools and lots more. It is a useful service that makes sure that your business is listed correctly on all applicable online directories.
When you are in a competitive market, it is definitely worth going for their packages with starting at just $17/mo ($199 annually). You can start by doing a free scan of your business to see how your business appears online. Click here and fill in your business name and phone number to know about appearance of your business across the internet.
