Businesses should make a conscious effort to make their online presence known.
Managing your online presence does take some effort since this involves:
- Identifying all the places your business is listed online (chances are, you didn’t put it there yourself);
- Creating and managing login credentials on high-authority directory sites (using a password-protected spreadsheet to keep track of this information may help);
- Finding and correcting duplicate listings (sometimes by directly contacting a local directory);
- Regularly monitoring for errors due to changes (often submitted by other users); and
- Consistently updating all directories with changes to your NAP, service descriptions, hours of operations, images, etc.
By executing these actions, your business will likely stand to gain a large competitive advantage in your local area.
Remember, the name of the game is no longer just clicks to your website, but search-traffic to your business information from multiple sources online.