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Potential customers research online and get their questions answered before heading to the store to purchase. Your digital footprint is your company’s primary impression and it is relevant more than ever to make it count.
Accurate business listings are critical for local SEO, improved online visibility and credibility, and maintaining customer trust in your brand. However, managing your business listings across multiple online business directories can be time-consuming and frustrating.
The good news is that tools are available to relieve this burden and ensure a consistent digital profile for your brand. Local listing management software ensures that your brand's local business listings are maintained accurately across authoritative websites and directories. It also makes listings voice search-ready and distributes them to Google, Bing, Apple, and Amazon Alexa.
Consider this article your ABC to local listing management software. It covers all important aspects, from what it is, key features, and benefits to a shortlist of the best tools available and how to choose the right tool for your multi-location brand. It is all you need to know—a complete updated guide for 2024.
Let's get into it!
Business listing software ensures your business can be found online. By providing critical business information, such as your name, address, and telephone number, online users learn who you are, where to find you, and how to reach you through your local listings. It can be comprehensive and include the following details:
Online users don't tolerate incorrect information and may give up looking if they find the wrong information. Therefore, ensuring that the correct data is always available is critical. It's not a one-time activity, either. It's an ongoing process of ensuring that the local listings reflect your business information correctly across all websites.
Local listing management software is available to help you do this efficiently (as you imagine, doing it manually is a tedious and time-consuming task). These local SEO tools can automatically manage your local listings and ensure correct and updated business information is shared and synchronized across all online business directories. Your business will not be lost amongst the online crowd but will shine and be found.
Additionally, these tools also make listings voice search-ready and distribute them to Google, Bing, Apple, and Amazon Alexa.
These automated tools work as your business partner to ensure your business information is correct and updated across the web. Online users will find your business information whether they search on Google or Bing or ask Siri for suggestions.
Today, the Internet is the preferred source of information, and most people look for business information online. However, the accuracy of information is critical. A study by Brightlocal shows that 62% of consumers would avoid using a business if they found incorrect information online.
Therefore, it is vital to manage local listings. Accurate and up-to-date local listings are essential to building credibility and trust with online users and customers. Local listings play a vital role for local SEO since they:
The more indicators there are to confirm that your business is established in a local area and open for business, the greater the opportunity your company has to rank higher in local search results. A higher ranking will drive more traffic and prospective customers to your website and your business across the different locations.
For example, when an online user searches for “the best coffee shop near me” or “hardware store in Washington,” your business will show up and rank high in the search results if you have an optimized local SEO strategy in place. It makes it easier for customers to find and contact your business.
Enhancing online visibility through accurate and up-to-date local listings and business listing software will build credibility with potential customers, improve your online reputation, and create trust in your brand.
A local listing management software platform has key features that enable it to manage listings effectively on your behalf across multiple locations. A user-friendly tool is easy to use and allows you to track and monitor performance, keep in touch with, and manage listings across all your sites.
The following are some of the most important features:
A centralized dashboard allows you more visibility to track and monitor all activities related to listings management - including location-specific performance - from one centralized point and in real-time.
Citation management with the local SEO tool allows you to ensure listings are correct, updated and centrally managed for consistency.
Listing management platforms allow you to create and synchronize listings across Google, Facebook, and many other social and business platforms and directories. Some tools also cater to industry-specific sites.
An important feature is the identification and removal of duplicate listings. Containing duplicate listings ensures that your business is easier to find online.
Business listing software allows you to track reviews and suggestions and make fast updates and improvements, supporting your reputation management activities.
Obtain analytics and customized reports to monitor your listing strategy and gain insights to adapt to the local market.
Using local listing management software provides definite benefits. A few are as follows:
Since all listings are managed from a single point, the risk of manual errors is reduced, and consistency and accuracy are improved.
Keeping business information up-to-date and uniform across online directories builds customer trust and enhances local SEO.
Local listing management software is active 24/7. It automatically executes repetitive and tedious tasks on your behalf, saving you time and improving your efficiency.
Actively managing listings allows fast responses to customer reviews, feedback, and questions and enhances and strengthens customer relationships.
Local listing management software tools can manage business listings across different locations and platforms. This ensures potential customers can easily find your accurate business information in location-based searches. The enhanced visibility drives traffic and boosts traffic conversion rates.
Use the local SEO tools to monitor brand mentions, respond to feedback, and proactively address issues and alerts to maintain a positive online image for your brand.
Managing local listings manually and without software tools can be challenging and frustrating, primarily from two perspectives.
To manage local listing data manually one by one is cumbersome, time-intensive, and leads to human error.
Errors and discrepancies can damage brand credibility, hurt local SEO, and turn potential customers away. Your brand’s online reputation will likely be damaged, and you risk losing customer trust.
Local listing management software ensures accurate and consistent listing management across platforms and online business directories. It overcomes the challenges of manual listing management and enhances your business digital profile.
Business listing software platforms can offer more than manage local listings. You need to confirm that the tool provides the “core local listings management functions” and evaluate which additional features you need.
Evaluate the platform’s network and ensure it covers all major directories and industry-specific listings relevant to you and your clients' businesses.
Confirm the level of automation offered. Match the automation capabilities with your volume of listings and required real-time changes.
There is a growing need for listing voice search optimization. Ensure your chosen local SEO tool has the required voice search capabilities, such as support for long-tail keywords and conversational phrases.
Analytics and reporting are important for tracking performance and providing insights for informed business decisions regarding listings management and local SEO strategy.
You must consider how well the software platform will integrate with your existing systems, Google Business Profile, Yelp, and industry-specific directories.
Follow up on the software’s available capacity. Can it manage large local listings? This is critical for multi-location brands to ensure the tool can accommodate their business needs as they grow.
A new tool is an investment for your business. Comparing the cost of the tool to the available budget is essential to ensure you get a fit-for-purpose local listings software solution.
Ensure the tool is user-friendly to ensure your team can work efficiently and onboarding will be easy.
Customer support is critical to addressing issues quickly. Follow up on the format of customer support, e.g., is it email only, or is telephonic support available?
Ensure the app gets updated regularly.
We have reviewed several listing management platforms and have shortlisted four competitive options. The main features and benefits of each are outlined below:
Synup is a local listing management software that helps businesses grow their online presence through local listings, reputation management, and social media management. Elevate your listing management with a powerful, all-in-one dashboard that simplifies promoting and managing your listings across various platforms and business directories. Perfect for businesses of all sizes, from multi-location brands to SMBs and large enterprises, Synup is your go-to automated API-based tool. Users can effortlessly synchronize and update listings, enhance local search rankings, and ensure a consistent brand image—all in one place.
Synup grants users the ease of managing their online presence and allows them to watch their business thrive.
The following are some key features of Synup:
Allow the Synup software tools to handle local listings management tasks—especially the repetitive and tedious ones—so you can focus on other areas of your business. The following are the main benefits of using this business management software:
Yext is a local listing management software for managing and updating business information across online listings, search engines, maps, and social media. The "answers platform" from Yext arranges data to respond to enquiries from partners, staff, and clients. The ‘Knowledge Graph’ presents your business information, including performance data, in an analysis-friendly structure.
Yext is a prominent software platform known for its extensive capabilities and robust local citation software for managing local listings. The local SEO tool offers advanced features and accurate listing synchronization across its vast network.
The following are key features of the Yext software platform:
The benefits that Yext provides for its users are summarized as follows:
BrightLocal is a local SEO tool that provides a toolset to rank higher locally and improve a business's online reputation. It helps generate more traffic and leads from local search and manage reviews.
With BrightLocal, you can build citations and ensure consistency in your business info everywhere. It offers a strong citation builder tool designed to manage business listings at scale. Use the local SEO features to identify keywords, track local ranking, and optimize your location pages for local searchers.
This business listing software features an intuitive dashboard and robust reporting functionalities.
The following highlights can be noted for the BrightLocal platform:
The benefits of the BrightLocal platform are:
SOCi positions itself as a comprehensive local marketing cloud platform, with listing management as a critical feature. The local listing management software is designed to build and manage citations at scale, offering bulk update capabilities. SOCi provides strong functionalities for multi-client citation management. With its SOCi Genius platform, SOCi uses AI and machine learning to provide information to multi-location businesses.
The listings management features boost your local SEO by ensuring your business information is correct and consistent across different sites.SOCi strengthens your digital presence across local search and social media, ultimately improving customer engagement and conversion rates.
SOCi has the following features:
The benefits of the SOCi platform are summarized below:
You can explore more effective listing management platforms by checking out this detailed list!
Never miss a business opportunity or lose potential customers again due to missing or incorrect listing information.
Once you have your local listing management software platform in place, you can be confident that your digital profile is consistent across all relevant websites. Any changes will be captured and updated to reflect all your locations. You can look forward to managing local listings more consistently and accurately with less effort.
You have taken an essential first step, and studying the information in this article has provided you with the right background and knowledge to proceed. We hope you are eager to take further action. Remember that local listing management is not a one-time activity but an ongoing process. Consistent and accurate listing management will yield the best results, which is achievable with the right software.
Maintain the momentum and implement the right platform across all your locations.
At Synup, we have the know-how, software solutions, local listing management capabilities, and passion for helping businesses strengthen their branding.
Speak with our team and book a demo to get started today!
Accurate local business listings are critical for a business’s online visibility. By providing up-to-date and reliable information, accurate listings contribute to a positive UX and boost local SEO, as search engines consider consistent and precise business information a ranking factor.
Businesses with up-to-date, accurate listings (without duplication) are more likely to attract local customers looking for products or services. Local business listings contribute to a professional online profile and build trust with potential customers.
Optimizing local business listings increases visibility in local search results, improves online reputation through customer reviews, and enhances credibility.
Local listing management software is a set of tools designed to help businesses, brands, and organizations manage their online presence through various directories, search engines, and maps. A critical aspect is ensuring that your company's information is consistently and accurately represented across all digital listing platforms.