What Is Local Listing Management?

We know that as an agency or local marketer, you understand exactly what local listing management is. Yet it’s one of those topics that can be hard to explain to your customer when they ask, “Just what is local listing management?” So today, I would like to help you better explain this important subject and sell listing management services to your local business customers.

What Is Listing Management?

Local listing management is the management of a business’ data on the internet. This data consists of the business’ name, address and phone number (NAP) in most cases.

Other types of data can be included within a local business’ listing, like a link to the business’ website, days and hours of operation, the primary and secondary business categories, products & services the business offers, payment methods they accept and additional attributes such as wheelchair accessible, if they offer free WiFi, and so on. NAP is the primary information – this other data is secondary.

Local listing management is a service that agencies and local marketers offer to ensure that a business’ address and information relating to the business is correct in online directories and data sources such as mapping apps, Google Business Profile (formerly known as Google My Business), Yelp, Hotfrog, MerchantCircle – and countless other data sources.

Now that we have a definition that will help you explain local listing management to your local business customers, let’s explore it a bit more closely.

You can continue defining what listing management is by adding:

You know how when you search for a business online for directions,
and the business information will come up on multiple data sources?
Often, some of those sources may have different addresses …
so to request directions, how do you know which one is correct?

This conflicting online data is essentially incorrect – clearly demonstrating that the business needs local listing management.

Why Is Local Listing Management Important?

The fact is, no one likes to get lost when driving to a local business. Consumers lose trust in a business if the information about the business is incorrect online. And search engines lose trust too. Search engines want to keep consumers coming back for more, so why would they continue to place a business higher in search if the information about the business is wrong? They wouldn’t. It’s that simple.

BrightLocal’s Local Citation Trust Report revealed the following:

• 80% of consumers lose trust in local businesses if they see incorrect or inconsistent contact details or business names online
• 68% of consumers would stop using a local business if they found incorrect information in online directories
• 40% would give up looking for a local business they couldn’t find because the address was wrong online

If a business is not managing their business’ NAP data online, they need to ensure that they hire an agency or local marketing company to do it. This is where you, as an agency, can really help your local business customers.

Have You Considered How Valuable Listing Management Is to Your Agency?

Our listing management service is not only affordable, it produces results, brings in recurring revenue to your agency, gets you new agency leads, includes reporting and much more.

1. Your local business clients love to see results.

Adding listing management to your agency product offering is an easy way to show a new client results right away. With our listing management solution, you can show your client results in minutes – literally.

At Advice Local, directories and data sources trust the data we provide them to be accurate. And since we have a direct API connection to many of these sources, the data on the directory can be updated almost instantly.

2. Selling listing management provides a low-maintenance, additional recurring revenue stream for your agency.

We prioritize white-labeling our listings management service to other agencies. This means your customer will see your business name instead of ours. You get to set the price at which you sell Advice Local’s listing management service to your customers. Anything above what you pay us is profit.

3. Our lead gen tools bring you new business.

At Advice Local, partners can run unlimited Baseline Reports for prospective customers. This tool is an excellent way to get your foot in the door at a business. Additionally, we have a widget you can add to your website to invite site visitors to run a free Online Visibility Report.

When they run the free report, the lead information collected is added within your Advice Local partner dashboard. You can use this information to follow up with the prospective business to sell them listing management, Google Business Profile optimization – and many other services your agency may offer.

4. We include 100% white-label automated reporting.

No one really likes to spend their day producing reports for clients. At Advice Local, our solution includes automated white-label reporting. Within your partner dashboard, you can set up automated reporting that emails directly to your clients. Your client feels good because they got a report showing how visible their business is online, and you didn’t have to lift a single finger to send it.

Local Listing Management Brings in Revenue for Both Your Agency and Your Clients

As you can see, when it comes to listing management there’s a lot to consider – we’ve only touched on the high points. Request a demo today and dig into all the details with one of our team members.