Climbing Search Engines With Consistent Listings

Reputation Management is part art part science. Sometimes it takes careful handling of a bad review or a negative tweet other times it’s a simple check-list of dos and don’ts that anyone with an internet connection and a little guidance can complete in no time flat. One of those straightforward tasks is ensuring your listings are consistent across directories and review sites.



When we say “online directories” we’re not just talking about Google+ Local Bing Business Portal and Yahoo! Local. We’re also talking about sites like Superpages Citysearch Judy’s Book etc.. A lot of businesses don’t understand this. They think that if they’ve claimed their listing on Google they’re in the clear.



“Wait so what the *bleep*’s a Superpage?” Mr. Small Business Owner is thinking. “Or a Citysearch? And who the heck is Judy and what’s this about her book?”



The list of online directories is long (and growing). That’s where a good Reputation Intelligence tool saves businesses countless hours by showing them: where they’re listed where they’re missing and where the information is inaccurate. As a rule of thumb it’s best to make business listings exactly the same on all directories review sites and social sites. Even something as small as an inconsistent abbreviation could mess things up; the difference between “ABC St.” and “ABC Street” on multiple sites might be the difference between placing 1st or 5th on search engines (which is a lot of lost customers). That’s why we now offer our partners the option between relaxed or strict visibility configuration.



Alright let’s wrap this up. Visibility consistency is one of the easiest most crucial aspects of Online Reputation Management (in fact it’s so important that some of our partners focus solely on selling this one feature to their clients). Small business owners know that traffic = business and even though visibility monitoring can’t replace a good SEO strategy it is critical in helping local businesses climb the search engine results page.