Steps for Claiming Business Listings and Reviews, Part 2

In part one of this two-part blog series, we went over some of the preliminary basics when it comes to claiming your business listing on various online hubs. This practice, which is vital for improving the way your site is viewed by a variety of prospective clients, is very important across a variety of industries using SEO and other online advertising formats.

At Be Locally, we’re proud to offer a wide variety of local SEO and other SEO services in addition to PPC, web design and several other parts of a comprehensive online marketing strategy. We’ve helped numerous clients with claiming their business listings and optimizing these areas, and we’re here to do the same for you among our varied services. Here are some additional pointers and tips for this process.

Industry-Specific Listing Sites

We went over the three primary listing sites to consider in part one of our series, and virtually all business owners who are advertising online in any way should look into claiming their listings on these sites. In addition, though, it’s important to consider the top listing sites for your specific industry.

Are you unsure what these sites are for your particular industry? Never fear. There’s so much information out there in this field these days that all you have to do is search your industry on Google – look for phrases that relate to your specific business type to lead you in the right direction. Be sure to claim listings on at least the top couple review sites in your industry.

Basic Claiming Steps

Some naturally assume claiming a review listing is a difficult and complex process, but this actually couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s incredibly simple, with the following steps involved:

• Search for your business on whichever listing site you’re looking into.
• If you find it, claim the business.
• If you do not find it, add your business.
• Fill in all relevant business information, then claim the business.

Now, this process will differ somewhat between each listing site. Be sure you keep track of different listings in a spreadsheet or another resource, with the date you submitted them and other important information.

In addition, there are modern automated services that manage local business listing data available. Speak to our team about these.

Mistakes to Avoid

A few clarifications and errors to avoid during this process:

• While many business owners arrange for third-party listing management, don’t allow listings to be claimed under any account besides your own. In such a situation where your relationship with that third party ended, this party would control your listings instead of you.
• “Claiming” a listing is not the same as “owning” it. Only the listing site in question owns their reviews, but you can claim it and give yourself the right to manage it.

For more on claiming your site’s review listings, or to learn about any of our SEO marketing services, speak to the staff at Be Locally today.