What Is Business Listing in SEO? 7 Tips to Optimise It!

As a business owner, you certainly want your business to be easily found by your potential customers, have a strong online visibility, and optimal SEO performance. To get all this, a business listing can be the best strategy you can do. But before you go through, you must first know what is business listing in SEO.

In brief, business listing is a strategy that involves listing your business in online directories entry to be easily found by users who do search. Let's go deeper into this article to know what is business listing in SEO, its benefits, and tips to optimise it!

What Is Business Listing in SEO?

A business listing in SEO is one off-page SEO strategy that involves listing your business in online directories. The main information that should be included on the business listing is name, address and phone number (NAP).

The main objectives of this business listing are to improve your business's online visibility, increase brand awareness, increase traffic and increase conversion.

Besides the NAP aspect, you can add more business details like description, product you sell, and operating hours. You can also add photos, short videos or infographics and review sections to increase business credibility.

Why Should You List Your Business?

If you already have a good and attractive website, but the traffic that leads to your website is still very low, a business listing can help you get out of this condition. Yes, a good and competitive online business must have clear listing information.

Especially, if you are a business has a physical store, then local listings will be a great way to attract potential customers in your area. With SEO-friendly business listing, consumers will find it easier to visit your physical store with the maps feature. 

According to data, 72% of consumers use local search to find a local business within five miles of their location. This shows that local business listings can be the strategy to increase conversion and sales by targeting local people with high search intent.

Here are what benefits you will get from listing your business:

• Increase business visibility: Your website's visibility is increased by listing your business in online directories. Also, search engines will find it easier to display your website when a niche search is performed.
• Strongest authority: Business listings can add high-quality backlinks to your website and lead to increased authority.
• Increase website traffic: Someone who searches and then finds your business on directory sites is likely to visit your website.

Tips to Optimise Your Business Listings

After you understand what is business listing in SEO and its importance to business, you may want to know how to optimise it. There are some tips you can take note of in your SEO business listings, including:

1. Choose the Most Suitable Business Listing Directories

Of course, if you want to find the exact customers that drive your sales, you should choose the best platform to sell. So, choosing the best business directory that is relevant to your industry, location and audience is the first important thing to do.

Some business directories that are already well known and have a wide audience reach are Google My Business, Bing Places, and Yelp. However, you can also add other directory listings for your business that are specific to your industry.

For example, if you run a clothing business with both online and offline stores in Petaling Jaya, then you could consider listing your business on Google My Business, Facebook, Yelp, FaveBiz, Shopee, and Lazada.

2. Update Your Business Listing

Providing complete and updated information is one of the tips for maintaining your SEO for Google My Business profile. In this step, you need to first, make sure your name, address, phone number (NAP), opening hours, and other details are accurate. 

Next, you can update your opening hours and holiday schedule to reflect national and religious holidays. You can also update if there are new products, new branches of your business, seasonal promotions, or new documentation.

3. Add More Useful Information

Adding more detailed information to your business listing is essential to help your customers understand more about your business and convince them to use your products and services. 

You can begin by adding your business social media links, writing a compelling business description, and including your business documentation in your business listing.

You can also optimise your business listing in SEO-friendly ways by including relevant keywords in your business description and including your website link to build backlinks.

For example, if you run a restaurant in Kuala Lumpur, you can add a graph feature that shows the busiest time and average visit duration for Google My Business optimisation. 

For optimisation on Yelp, you can add icons to show the facilities your restaurant has, for example, "vegetarian-friendly", "casual dining", and "open 24 hours".

4. Add High-Quality Documentation

Did you know that around 60% of consumers said that their positive decision towards a business is increased because of the good and high-quality documentation the business shows? This fact shows that using documentation can be beneficial to increase conversions.

There are some types of documentation you can include in your listing such as images and short videos about your business or maybe the production process of products you sell. Yet, remember to ensure all the assets are clear, not blurred, and not too bright or too dark. 

5. Make it Optimise for Voice Search

As technology evolves, Google now has a feature called voice search. This technology can perform searches without typing keywords, but using speech translated by Google's machine learning instead.

Most voice searches use longer keywords or are in the form of questions. Therefore, you can consider including the answers to these potential questions in your business listing information. This will make your business easier to find with voice search. 

6. Reply to Online Reviews

Online directories such as Google Maps and Google My Business usually have a section for ratings and reviews. These reviews are provided by customers to rate your business. 

To build trust, connection and customer satisfaction, you can respond to both good and bad customer reviews. For good reviews, you can thank them for using your product or service, while for negative reviews, you can apologise and use it as an opportunity to grow your business.

7. Do Business Listing Audit

A business listing audit is an evaluation performed to ensure that all information throughout your business listing is accurate and consistent,

For example, you can start a Google My Business audit by checking that all the information listed is correct, and you can also update your business photos and videos, as well as any changes. 

Or, you can also perform a listing audit on the Malaysia Yellow Pages by reviewing your NAP (Name, Address, Phone number) details, checking for duplicate listings, and regularly updating your business with relevant local keywords. 

Conclusion

After knowing what is business listing in SEO, you will know that having a proper business listing can bring numerous benefits to your business, such as making it easier for customers to find you, boosting traffic, and enhancing consumer trust. Most importantly, business listings can also drive conversions and contribute to the sustainable growth of your business.

However, managing business listings effectively requires technical skill and can be extremely time-consuming. So, if you feel the need for professional assistance, you can rely on SEO Services by cmlabs, a trusted name with extensive experience in the SEO field.

cmlabs can help you build a strong online presence by optimising your business listings. There's no need to doubt, as cmlabs is already trusted by industries from various countries. So, what are you waiting for? Contact our marketing team today and take a big step towards your online success!