In the last two posts of SEO You Should Know: Local Edition, we’ve discussed how you can begin to establish and manage your presence in the increasingly important world of local search. In just a few hours, you can locate, claim, build, and maintain your company’s profiles on Google, Yelp and Bing.

Those are only three of hundreds of online directories, search engines, and review sites that could have your company’s info. If you have the time (and patience), you can find these directories and complete the similar processes of getting your company listed. The more references and links to your site, the better. You could also hire an experienced SEO firm to focus on developing this local presence for you. And with the obligatory pitch out of the way, on to this week’s post.

A problem you will probably come across as you scour the web for these (mostly free) local directories is the issue of duplicate listings. It can happen on the lesser known directories and even on the heavy hitters like Google, Yelp, and Bing. You would think having more references and pages talking about and directing to your site would be a good thing right? It is, but not in this case.

Duplicate listings can occur when the search engine’s bots crawl the web after each query is submitted and they bring back all of the information they find to the searcher.  In the vastness of the internet, there are bound to be some discrepancies. These could occur when a customer cites the wrong address or phone number on a review site. Or maybe your company moved years ago, but some engines still have the old address and number. Possibly your URL or email address have changed. The reason we claim these business listings to remove discrepancies and manage your local profiles is the same reason we remove duplicate listings.

First, we don’t want incorrect information about your business feeding the search engine bots. In the last two posts, we talked about NAP. It is very important from a local standpoint that your NAP is accurate and matching the NAP that could be found at any corner of the internet in regards to your company.

Second, it is important that you leave the competition to your actual competition. You don’t want to be competing with yourself. Some of our clients have had duplicate Yelp or Google profiles with slight variations. Your potential customers won’t put too much thought into uncovering the correct listing or the incorrect one. Your gamble will be hoping they pick the one you’ve spent the time carefully selecting pictures, writing great descriptions, and developing your image. So we want to remove these duplicates to make sure when they click on your business name, they are getting the best first impression.

The tricky part is the actual removal of these listings. Some directories and engines are better than others. As we’ve mentioned before, Google has very little (if anything) in the way of customer service. If you come across multiple listings on Google for the same location, you will have to go through the claiming process again. Once you verify that you are the owner, update the information in the profile and then suspend the listing. (Note: Don’t delete it from your places, just the Google Results…you’ll still want to be able to manage it). Every once in a while, do a Google Places search for your company and make sure no other duplicates pop up. Popular or larger companies have this happen often.

Most of the other directories are easier, but are not uniform. For the most part, it is a matter of tracking down the customer support section of the directory, and sending an email to the support team to help you by manually removing the listing. Other times there will be an FAQ section, and in many cases you can find support there by selecting “Duplicate Listing Error” or something similar and submitting a request to have the duplicates removed. It helps if you know the URL’s of the duplicates, so have those ready or open in separate tabs.

Then it’s just a matter of time and patience. Keep up with your emails sent out to these support teams and check back every so often. There are a ton of directories out there, so your work is never completely done. Justify this with the knowledge that every little bit really does help. And again, if you’d rather leave it to the SEO pros, there’s always that option.

We’ve come to the end of our local advice for now. Stay tuned for the next edition of SEO You Should Know, and we’ll tackle another element of search engine optimization that will help you grow your online presence. As always, if you have any questions, email us at moc.evitcaretnignivlovenull@ofni, call us, or sound off in the comment section.

Last week we started a segment called SEO You Should Know. Sticking with Local Optimization, we’re going to talk about getting your business listed on a major search engine (Bing) and a major review site (Yelp).  In Volume 1, we talked about getting listed, verified, and seen on Google, which is the most popular and used search engine. But let’s not count out Bing (Google’s largest competitor) and Yelp (a review site where Google receives a lot of its reviews and info).

Again, these posts are here to help get you started. If you have questions about local optimization or other SEO marketing strategies, email moc.evitcaretnignivlovenull@ofni.

1. Get Listed on Bing.com

Similar to how you found and claimed your business on Google, you should start by doing a Bing search for your business name and city or town. This should pull up your business as the first result. Bing’s 1^st result page isn’t too far off from Google when it returns your specific result. There will be a sectioned off Map and listing for your business if Bing has the information. If you don’t see the Map section right away, you will need to go to the “More” tab at the top of the search results. Select “Maps” from these options. If you find your business has a listing, click on the title of your business. On your businesses local page, you will see an option to “Change Your Business Listing”. Click on that link, it will prompt you to the next page where you can claim your listing by creating an account. Once your account is set up, you will have access to your local listings page.

From this point, Bing’s relatively new Business Portal allows you to add pictures, target your industry terms, and most importantly; make sure the NAP (name, address, phone) matches what is on your website and the other local profiles you’ll be building. Remember, many of these search engines and directories will have info about your company that they found from crawling the internet. It won’t always be correct, so take the time to claim and revise. The more sources across the web that show the same info, the more these search engines will trust the information they find.

2. Verifying on Bing

Similar to how you had to verify your listing on Google, Bing will ask for a phone call or mailer for verification. The phone call is faster of course, with instant gratification that allows you to publish your updates. The mail option will take a couple of weeks, but as long as all of the information is accurate, shouldn’t be a problem. The main difference between the search engines is that Bing has a support center that will help you if you’re having trouble getting verified.

3. Get Listed on Yelp

In most cases, unless you’re a brand new business, Yelp will have a profile for your company already. Yelp gets its information from customers and reviewers,  and while most who review try to be as descriptive and accurate as possible, nobody really knows your business like you. Since Search Engines will grab information from sites like Yelp, it is important that you claim your profile and complete it as much as possible. Yelp’s site is a little more fun and user friendly.

Search for your business name or industry in your area to find if you have an existing profile. If you do, click on it and claim it. If not, follow the directions to add a business.

Unlike the others, Yelp requires that you verify your business before you edit any information. Yelp will place an automatic call to your company (make sure your automated system is off) and provide you with a pin. Once Yelp offers its sincere “Congratulations!”, you’re good to go. Add photos, bios, special deals for Yelp customers, and of course the accurate NAP. Also, take advantage of the Yelp analytics to help track the benefits of your completed Yelp profile.

That’s all for this week in SEO You Should Know: Local Edition Volume 2. In the third and final volume, we will talk about duplicate listings in the local world. If you have any questions or would like to know more about other internet marketing strategies and how they can help your business, contact the Chicago SEO experts at moc.evitcaretnignivlovenull@ofni or call today.

We want to try and put more of the “Interactive” in our blog. Once a week from here on out, we’re going to host a feature called SEO You Should Know. While we are an SEO Firm with dreams of world domination, there is a lot of basic work you can do yourself to help your business in the SEO world. You won’t see the same results as if you had an SEO firm working on your campaign year round, but a little work can go a long way at the start of your search engine marketing campaign.

We’re going to stress the importance of local optimization for you small businesses with storefronts or headquarters, because it’s never been more important than it is right now. Over the next few weeks, we’ll focus on finding, claiming, and optimizing your local profile on four of the heavy hitters; Google, Yahoo, Bing, and Yelp (not a search engine, but still a profile that must be optimized).

Google is the benchmark, so let’s start with them. Start by typing your business name and town into the Google toolbar. We want to see three things.

1. If your business is already listed in Google Places. Your website should come up first if you’re searching your business name and area (unless you have business name that talks about your industry in the name. ex: company named Chicago Pet Day Care will have competition for the top spot of their business name.) You should also see a section with results that have some more information, maybe some pictures, and a little red teardrop that will indicate a spot on a small Google Map. This is your place page. If you see a result but not a place page, let’s look further.
2. Where is my place page? Even if you have never submitted your business information to Google’s database, it will most likely have information about you. (It may not always be 100% accurate, which is why we’re doing this.) Google crawls the entire web every time it has a search query. It comes back with information it sees connected with your business name; most importantly, your NAP (Name, address, phone number), as well as your industry, reviews about your company, etc. If you aren’t showing up in Google Places at all, and your business has a storefront or centralized location, let’s fix this now. In recent months, Google has placed more and more value on local profiles. Not having an optimized local profile could be costing you valuable search result page real estate, which costs you customers.
3. Adding Your Business to Google. The first step is creating a Google account. This is as quick and easy as setting up an email account. Follow the steps, put in the required information, and you should be good to go. Once your account is set up, you’ll come to this page. Here, you’ll put in the business name and phone number to see once more if there is already a listing for your business.  If your business still isn’t showing up, Google will bring you to a screen to begin filling in your business listing.  After you fill out as much information as possible, including relevant photos and videos if you have them, click the submit button at the bottom of the page. An important tip is to try and leave no fields blank. The more information you can provide your customers and the search engine, the better.
4. Verification In Google’s ever-advancing effort to keep only the best of the best showing up for search results, Google has a verification process to make sure you or an authorized representative are the one’s claiming your account and filling in the right info (instead of a disgruntled customer, former employee, competitor, etc.). There are two ways Google can complete this process, phone or postcard.  Choose whatever works best for you.
5. I found my business on Google, now what? Once you find your place page, you will see on the top “business owner?”. Click on “Business Owner?”, log-in with or create a Google account, and then continue from step 3 above through the filling out and claiming process.

As always, if you have any questions, comment below and we will address your question specifically. In the following weeks, we’ll focus on claiming profiles in other search engines and some quick helpful tips to help you get started with your SEO campaign.