So here I am posting about, and referring to a competitor’s article. What a I thinking?!
I’m thinking that George Freitag with Moz Local has put out a very important video that gets into some pretty smart detail about some of the intricacies of why your business listings accuracy is so important.
It all boils down to trust.
So how does Google determine trust? That is where listing accuracy comes into play. Listing accuracy is Google’s method for determining whether or not it can trust a local business search result.
It makes sense for Google to factor in, and give a lot of weight to trust. And I think we will all agree that trust starts with knowing who you’re talking to.
Why does accuracy, beyond Google, affect how Google ranks you?
Why should you care about a website that’s got bad information, that’s on a source that you’re never going to go to, you know your customers are never going to go to and probably isn’t driving that much traffic your website instead? Well, it has to do with this concept of listing accuracy, because, again, this is how Google is measuring how much it can trust your information.
If five usually trusted websites say your address is 123 Main Street, and Google thinks it is 456 Water Street, well, there’s a great big question as to who is right.
Worse still, if there’s someone else down the street whose address is 789 Main Street and it’s the same all over, well, doesn’t that make it a better choice to show to people searching?
Ok – so we know that it’s important to fix it. And to fix it all over. But what about keeping it fixed? Yes, there is maintenance to be done.
The last step for this is related to maintenance. This is not a one-time thing. Over time this information can be corrupted because these places not only get their information from a primary data provider, but they also get their information from each other. In some cases, a primary data source might be crawling these sites, that it indirectly provides information to, and so if you ever played a game of a telephone, you kind of know how this will end up. So you do need to go back and revisit these exercises from time to time, looking for business inaccuracies through Google manually or keeping up a relationship with one of these top-level data providers.
The sum of it is that you have to be on top of the situation. The situation is indeed fluid. And frankly, it’s tough to do.
And that’s why services like FixMyInfo exist. And hey – it’s ok to mention a competitor like Moz. They’re great, but so are we – and we cost less. 🙂
Read the full article, or watch the video here.
Is your business listed in all the right places? Do you know what your customers are saying about you in comments, and reviews?
Check it all in one place, for free. Click here.
