What are Online Listings?
Online listings are entries found all over the internet for your plumbing, heating or HVAC business. The role of these listings are to help customers find information they would need to get in contact with your company. A listing will include your business name, address, phone number, hours and other information. Some very common listing sites that most would be familiar with are, Angi’s List, Yellow Pages, Better Business Bureau, and others.
Why are Listings Important?
It is important for your business to be listed on these online directories because it will make it easier for local customers to find you and use your company for their next residential plumbing project. When your online listings are correct and consistent, it signals to search engines that your business is legitimate and can be trusted. When search engines like Google can trust your business, more customers will see it in search results, resulting in a lot more visitors and traffic to your website!
The Ins and Outs of Listings
Online listings are automatically generated throughout these pages on the internet, so it is very easy for mistakes to be made sometimes. Mistakes could include new hours, an old phone number, an old address etc. If a customer finds old information and shows up at an old location and the door is locked, they might think you are unprofessional. That’s why it is so important to constantly check and run online directories reports regularly! It’s common sense that if you want your business information out there, you want it to be correct and up to date. Each and every new listing created for your plumbing, heating or HVAC business increases your chances of being found by customers.
Secure Your Reputation
It is not enough just to find and correct the listings your business already has on the internet. Once they have been found and corrected, it is important to ‘lock’ those in to make sure those listings do not get changed again. Locking in your businesses listing is important so another business can’t use your listing with their phone number, and claim your business. Locking these listings in are key to protecting your plumbing, heating or HVAC’s reputation. When each listing is correct and consistent it signals to all of the search engines, like Bing or Google, that your website is reputable and can be trusted. When these search engines can trust your business, and give it a good score, it will be pulled for more search results. To lock your business listing in, a listing management tool must be used. Some examples of listing tools would be Bright Local, Yext, Moz, etc. These tools require payment but it allows your listings to be managed, and locked in so they will never change, and you will own the listing.
Conclusion
Online listings are just another piece of the puzzle to show search engines that your plumbing, heating or HVAC business is reputable and consistent. This will result in more searches, more website traffic and ultimately more customers for your business. Taking these steps will increase your customer experience and engagement and it is one less thing you will have to worry about when it comes to your website and online presence!
