It’s not strange to wonder what local listings have to do with reviews. It turns out they have more to do with each other than you thought.
Local listings describe your business online profile carrying details like business name, address, phone number, and more. You can create your business local listing on any online directory or platform that suits your needs.
The major platforms most business prefer to list on include Google My Business, Yelp, Facebook, and YP.
So, back to how local listings link up with reviews.
A lot of business owners don’t take their local listings and citations seriously. This is mostly because there is a general belief that it makes no difference in conversion and sales.
This thinking might just be what is causing you a major conversion leakage and giving your competitors an edge.
If you take a moment to view negative reviews on a business (look out for the ones that have the word ‘wrong’ in them), you will notice that a substantial number of clients relate a bad experience caused by inaccurate address, business hours, or some other part of the local listings and citation.
The influence of citations and local listings on your business might not be measurable with enough accuracy at the moment, but there is enough evidence to support their influence on customer experience and conversion.
Consider the following scenarios commonly experienced by customers.
Situation 1: Your business hours are not accurate but of course, there’s no way for a new prospect to know this. The customer goes to your local address at the time provided on your local listing only to discover that this time was incorrect. In this situation, the customer is already building up on a bad experience. They might or might not be converted but one thing you can be almost certain of is a review telling others that your citations and listings are inaccurate.
Situation 2: An incorrect or confusing office address can lead your customers to the wrong places not to mention wasting their time trying to find the correct address. Like the first situation above, conversion becomes a probability and a review stating their problem and experience is likely to show up.
Reviews and experiences like this are what create a conversion leakage that influences overall conversion or cash flow. Here is a clearer view of the consequences of neglecting citations.
- Negative reviews from dissatisfied or unhappy clients
- A decrease in future conversions from the negative reviews and customers losing interest.
- Increase in negative sentiment about your business and service
- Decrease in offline foot traffic because of inaccurate data or influences citations.
The solution to close this significant leak and move ahead of your competitors is to clean up your local listings and citations. Focus on accuracy. Think of how to use your profile to contribute to conversions and goodwill from customers. Track business improvements following this and use a local listing monitoring tool to ensure consistency across all your online profiles.
