Local Business Listing Frustrations Cannot Update Listing
Author : Kara Knapp
“I have tried several times to edit my business local listing and it tells me Status Pending Review.”
“I’ve been trying to get my current address, phone number and website address updated in my local listing for months.”
“Recently, I have submitted my local business and had been waiting for my verification PIN. After 20 days I have received that PIN number, but my listing has been already verified by someone else.”
The above quotes are excerpts from postings at search engine local listing forums. Business owners are having difficulty updating their local business listings on their own. These are only a few examples of the problems business owners run into. Reviewing the forums of the major search engines, Google, Yahoo and Bing, you will find many more questions and frustrations.
Certainly the search engines have tried very hard to make this process as easy as possible, however, the individual tasks can appear to raise more questions to someone who is not familiar with the information or the process.
The issue tends to go beyond the obvious request to answer questions on the computer screen. Each question may raise further questions in the mind of the business owner. These silent questions begin to focus on the business brand, the message, the marketing strategy. Question like “Am I entering the right information?”, “Am I entering the information correctly?” are only a couple of the higher level questions that come to mind when someone starts to ask you questions about your local business.
The local business owner wants to maximize the limited time resources they have. If they spend time to work on this information, they will want to be sure it benefits them and they probably don’t want to come back to do this again. The anxiety of insuring the information they enter helps their business far outweighs the questions being asked by the search engine local listing.
An additional burden comes from having to perform this task on all the major search engines along with many non-search engine websites like Local.com and Yelp. By the time you look through the process you will find at least six major locations to update and maintain. We have identified 30 websites for which business will want to have their local listing managed. As you can see, the local business with limited time resources will not be able to keep up.
If you’re wondering why you want to have your local listing updated with six or more websites you’re not alone. The answer lies with iPhone, Blackberry and Palm. The mobile application developers for these phones will be the ones to decide which database of local listing they will use. Since any of these databases can be used, it only makes sense to have the local business listing information updated in as many locations as possible.
The strategy of how the information is entered is certainly an additional challenge. Knowing the keywords to use and how they should be entered is only the beginning. If you add coupons, offers, discounts, videos, photos, products and services, it will be necessary to know how to title, describe and tag the individual items. After all, you want your listing to show up at the top of the list of local listings for various search terms related to your business and also on mobile devices.
As part of the local search marketing strategy you will want to maintain your listings and manage them regularly. Our recommendation is once a week. Local listings that are not maintained will not be of any benefit to the local consumer and therefore they have no reason to click on your listing. You may have a new menu or products, an event at your business or store, or other news worthy items that will require the listing to be updated at all locations.
Lastly, we have to be concerned about customer reviews. Consumers have the ability to write their positive thoughts and negative emotions. This raises the notion that we want to encourage customers to write their positive thoughts and also insure we have a process in place to handle customers that are not satisfied to avoid having them post their negative emotions.
Utilizing a professional service to manage your local listings is no different than retaining a professional service to manage the search engine optimization of your website. Because the process is simpler than website search engine optimization, the fee structure is significantly lower.
Let us close out with two questions:
1. Do you know about your local listing?
2. Have you considered updating your local listing?
Get found on local business listing search engines. Smartfinds Local Listing can help you claim and update your listings so that your customers can find you.
How to Reduce Video Marketing Anxiety as a Woman In Business
Author : Danette Hibberd
Many people, including a lot of women in business, get all wound up as soon as they think about creating a marketing video. The countless cheerful recommendations on the net about “keeping it real” tend to get lost in your anxiety about looking unprofessional or amateurish when you make that first video.
But here’s a secret for you, in case you’ve forgotten it: You can always edit!
Editing is the best feature about video marketing. You get to have all the fun of making the video. And then you can sit there and cut out every bit you don’t like, or tighten up the “script”, if there’s a point where your dialogue on screen seems to drag.
If you’ve forgotten something, you can insert it. Easy!
If a large proportion of your target market are visual learners, you can insert second mini-videos by simply dragging and dropping new clips into your story line, showing them examples of what you’ve just been explaining.
And if you’re demonstrating how to use a physical product for example, your video is about candle making, you may not even want your actual recorded sound track at all, for some sequences. You can replace those screeching truck noises from the highway, the sounds of your kids fighting in the background and your neighbour yelling at his dog with appropriate music.
So there you are:
You’ve explained how to use the candle making tools, and now you’re going to demonstrate how to melt the wax and create a gorgeous shape. Segue in the music, speed up the action so it’s not dragging on and on, and just show them 1 minute of you actually doing some candle creating, at your sped-up pace.
Much more entertaining than real-time slow, methodical wax shaping with trucks roaring by, don’t you think?
Let’s cover a few tips for Inserting Missing Information
If you’ve forgotten to include some key point in your video, it’s easy to go back and insert it. Just shoot the “missing bit” and drag and drop into your storyline.
If it’s something as simple as forgetting your URL at the end of the video, this is easy as pie: However, if what’s missing is you explaining a key point in your “How To” video, you’ll need to make it look as if the new section wasn’t thrown in later as an afterthought.
The first way to keep it consistent is easy:
Just wear the same clothes and accessories and make sure your hair looks identical to the way it was in your original video. But there’s a second part to this, and people often fail to include it.
Make sure your lighting and set up is identical.
If you shot your video outdoors, it means waiting for the same sort of weather or light setting, or shooting the “fill in” segment at the same time of day. If you shot the original video indoors and there is any source of natural light entering the room, the “same time of day” rule also applies; but you shouldn’t have to worry about weather (unless your video was shot on a bright day, and there’s an abnormally dark thunderstorm rolling in).
Here’s another tip that’s often overlooked. If you have a clock behind you or in view, make sure you adjust the time to be consistent with your original video.
Remember to take notes.
This brings us to our last tip: Make notes about your video, as soon as you’ve shot it! Include things like the time of day, camera settings, lighting details and any special elements you must remember.
But if you’re really not happy with that first video, and all else fails, you can always go for the ultimate “edit” of all.
You can simply re-shoot!
Finally, it’s a total waste of energy to experience anxiety when it comes to video marketing. Just be you, present your topic in a succinct fashion and your video shooting and marketing experiences will be anxiety free.
If you want to earn more money whilst working less by turning your knowledge into passive income, Get your FREE report ‘11 Quickest Ways to Monetise Your Expertise and Fill Your Product Funnel’ by Danette Hibberd Product Funnel Formula
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