Frequently Asked
Questions
Why is local search important for my business?
Research shows that consumers are increasingly turning away from
traditional offline sources (e.g., Yellow Pages) and adopting online local
search engines to find qualified local businesses. In fact, each month, nearly
2 billion local searches are performed by consumers looking for the products
and services they need, right in their neighborhood. Over 80% of those searches
begin with search engines.
Until recently, the major online search engines relied on web site
crawling to capture information about local businesses. However, to improve the
comprehensiveness and quality of the local business content they display, they
created separate local search engine sites, including Google MapsÒ, Yahoo
LocalÒ, and MSN Live LocalÒ and
turned to companies like ours to obtain the content on local businesses.
Why should
an eLocal Business Profile be the foundation of my online marketing program?
It is essential the information displayed about your business by
local search engines is complete, accurate and up-to-date – and includes the
keyword-rich enhanced data about your business that will drive prominent
placement in local search engine results and motivate consumers to contact your
business.
Here is how we make sure this happens:
- Verified Enhanced Content – the result of giving you direct control
to ensure your online organic business listings are complete and
compelling enough to rise above the competition.
- Business content optimization – a breakthrough methodology and
process that validates, cleanses, organizes and extends your content to
leverage the power of local search engine technology.
- Broad Distribution – delivery of your business content to the
largest network of local search engine partners in the industry – over 85
and growing rapidly.
What is verified enhanced content?
Verified Enhanced content is your business listing information
after it has been updated and enriched to appeal to the diverse universe of
online consumers and to rise to the top in local search engine results. We have the largest and most accurate set of
business-verified content.
With us, it's easy to enrich your local business content with
unique, compelling, and keyword-rich information consumers look for: the
products you offer, the brands you carry, your hours of operation, the payment
methods you accept and anything else that will separate you from the
competition.
But we don’t stop there.
We take your enriched content and drive it through a proprietary
content optimization process, which cleanses, verifies, extends and organizes
your premium content for high-impact presentation and page ranking. The process also tags latitude/longitude
point codes to your location for maximum local search engine performance.
How will
this service help consumers find my business?
With this service, you have an easy way to review and update the
information about your business that is displayed by local search engines.
Better yet, we help you enhance your local business content with the rich and
robust information that improves your chances of appearing at the top of local
search engine results and increases the likelihood consumers will contact
business locations. Information such as the products and services you offer,
the brands you carry, corporate web site link, the hours of operation,
languages spoken and much more.
Along with unsurpassed business content quality and depth, we
enable you to go beyond category-forced “top-down” local searches to capture
consumers based on how they are searching – top-down, bottom up, or anywhere in
between.
Whether a consumer is looking for a category (Auto Service), a
specific brand (Precision TuneÒ) or something related
(“Oil Change”); you have the shortest and easiest path to qualified consumers,
connecting with them based on their
terms.
And, we distribute your enhanced content to the largest network of
local search engine partners in the industry, so you reach local consumers
wherever they are searching and eliminate the need to invest time and money
managing local business content directly.
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How can
this service help me manage my local online presence?
We put you in control of the type of local business content
displayed by local search engines, enabling you to better manage the online
presence of your brand. Because you have a single source for creating,
enriching and distributing the most accurate and up-to-date information about
your business locations, you are empowered to manage your brand image across
the most popular search engines on the Internet.
Without actively managing your local business content, up to 30%
of the information currently being displayed on locations can be out of date or
inconsistent, or missing altogether – and certainly does not include keyword
rich, compelling information to drive your business listing to the top of local
search engine results. We are the single source to improve your visibility by
making sure your local business content is consistent, enhanced and updated
across a wide network of leading local search engine sites.
We submit enriched, business verified content once a month putting
you in front of ready-to-buy online consumers, wherever they may be looking.
How can this service improve the online visibility of my business?
Even if your online marketing program includes Search Engine
Optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click campaigns, your business may still not
appear – or appear as you need it to – in the results displayed by local search
engines. And, these “localized” sites largely receive priority placement over traditional search engine results in local
search results. That’s because online search engines no longer rely solely on
web site crawling to capture information about businesses. Instead they use
partners like ours to provide them with powerful, complete business content.
By partnering with us, you have an easy and affordable way to
review and update the information that local search engines display about your
business. You also have an easy and affordable way to enrich the displayed
business content with the kind of keyword rich information that helps improve
ranking and placement in local search engine results and motivates consumers to
contact your business. This enhanced content about your business is
automatically distributed to the largest network of online search engine
partners in the industry.
View Slide Presentation
How can
this service save me time and money?
With this online content management solution, you no longer have
to invest time and resources to monitor, add or enhance your local search engine
content. You have a single source for rapid submission, and easy access to
update and distribute the richest, most accurate information about your
products, services, promotions, and much more.
The science of online local search
engines dynamic and the language of online customers is diverse. That’s why
traditional methods for increasing your chance of appearing at the top of
online local search engine listings are no longer effective. For example, one
customer searching for shoes may search by style while another searches by
brand or store hours.
Why is
having an eLocal Business Profile so important?
More than 80% of consumers searching for local products and
services start their search with a search engine. This means that if you don’t
send updated business content to the local search engines, up to 80% of the
customers looking for the type of products and service you offer may not see
updated, complete and accurate information on your business. With us, you have
an easy, affordable and dependable way to update and enhance your business
content and automatically distribute it to the largest network of local search
engine partners in the industry.
And, updating and distributing local search engine listings with
your Web site url provides hundreds
of inbound links to your business Web site (if you have one), which is critical
to improving your site’s organic search engine rankings as well.
View Slide Presentation
I’ve
already submitted my business to some of the major search engines so how can this
service help?
A majority of local searches begin on a major search engine, but
research shows that over 50% of consumers complete their local searches
elsewhere, including the dozens of Interactive Yellow Pages, industry-vertical
sites and local specialty directories. If you are not managing your business
content across all these local search engines, chances are you’re missing the
opportunity to reach and convert highly motivated consumers.
With us, you have a single source for managing and distributing essential
local business content to the largest local search engine network in the
industry – with over 85 local search engine partners, including Google Maps, Yahoo
Local, MSN Live Local,
Superpages.com,
Yellowpages.com, and DexOnline
One place for updating and submitting business
content means less money and less time spent on local content management – and
maximum reach.
What
happens after I place an order for my eLocal Business Profile
After
submitting our order form, you are directed to our online info-submission (26
fields) that captures the compelling information that produces qualified phone calls and local foot traffic, drives
purchase decisions and captures more organic keyword queries, such as products
sold, brands carried, services offered, hours of operation, languages spoken,
payment methods and much more.
Then, we
review
your submission, correct obvious mistakes, reformat your logo for optimal
viewing on the Internet, and research the optimal category names/keywords to
use for your business.
We
then create your online business profile page and get
it on the Internet within a few days. We'll notify you when your profile page
is live so you can review it and let us know if there is anything you want
changed. If you ever want to change any of the information in your business
profile, we give you access to a simple online data-update form.
Once you confirm the information we have is complete and accurate,
we'll submit it to the
largest search engine network in the industry (over
85 local search sites). From there, it usually takes 60 to 90 days for your
information to fully propagate throughout this network and for the magic to
start happening. Here is what you should expect:
- The 85 local search
sites to which we submit your business information will have an enhanced
listing (more fields of data about your business than standard listings) with
all the information being 100% accurate
- Your business will
be listed higher in the Google Local and Yahoo local search results
- Your Business Profile
will show up in the organic search results (e.g., Google, Yahoo) for searches
on keywords related to your business and location.
- f you have a
website, you'll get more traffic due to click-throughs from your online
business profile and search site listings
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