Your business is local, your online marketing needs to be optimized for your local area
When a person conducts a local search the search engines sometimes include a map of local businesses that are a good result for the search term. That’s certainly an opportunity where you want to be visible. Even large national or statewide companies who have local divisions or branches can optimize each local location to show in these local map results.
How do the search engines determine who shows on local maps?
It depends on many factors and like other optimization efforts, the criteria and algorithms change. The first thing to check is your online listings. Your business information is on many sites. Online business directories find your business information and automatically add your business to their database. It’s up to someone working for your business to claim these listings, make them complete and ensure the information is accurate and consistent across all the records and on your website. Each instance of these listings or information on your business is called a citation. Having consistent, accurate information across all listings and profiles (citations) increases trust with Google and other search engines.
NAP is the acronym used for the primary information in citations. It stands for – NAME, ADDRESS, PHONE NUMBER (NAP). All listings and profiles need to be EXACTLY the same. There is additional listing information for some profiles, make sure the information is 100% complete and optimized for better visibility.
