I’ve written recently about the importance of synchronizing your business name, address, and phone number across the primary and secondary business directories. Business owners need to ensure that they have consistent business data on the Internet to increase their relevance and to confirm that their business listing is legitimate.
Google Places Scams
Since Google Places is becoming a large driver of organic traffic to a car dealer’s website, Google Places scams are popping up all the time. These scams include fake business listings that are design to show websites and phone numbers in markets outside of the cities where businesses are located.
For example, a used car dealer in Westfield New Jersey who wants to show in Newark, might be tempted to create a second Google Maps listings using a random, valid street address but uses a phone number and website that redirects consumers to their business. To crack down on false listings, Google is using third party websites and primary data centers to verify the authenticity of Google Places listings.
Google Places Monetization
Google has not missed the significance of Google Places and has rolled out two ways to monetize the placement and popularity of Google Places data. Google Tags ($25 a month) and Google Boost (Pay-Per-Click) are two ways business owners can attract more clicks to the Places listing and to their main website.
It looks like the “tags” idea is catching on and YextTags.com is banking that “tagging” will be a standard marketing feature on other business review portals.
Yext Tags Leverages Tags On Multiple Directories
Capitalizing on business owners inability to synchronize their data across dozens of business directories, a new company is offering synchronization services and a bonus. Yexttags.com will update or add your business data across a few dozen online directories but they are also offering “tags” on a growing number of these 3rd party sites.
It looks like they have created a licensing deal to provide the equivalent of tags on Google Maps to websites like Yelp.com, SuperPages.com, CItySearch, and a number of other sites are pending. The cost for this monthly advertising service varies based on the number of sites that you want to run “tags”. This is a screen showing pricing on their website:
I have been studying the extra click traffic generated by Google Places tags and it looks very promising. This is a new twist in digital advertising which is based on their premise that a “tagged” business listing will generate significantly more traffic. So, it’s up to you to see if you want to test this new service offered by www.YextTags.com.
Free Bonus When You Visit Their Website
At least, you should use their free directory synchronization testing tool. You can enter your business name, address, etc. and it will tell you how many websites have this exact business data and which websites you are not listed. If you don’t subscribe to the service, you can at least generate a list of websites that you can manually update for free. This will increase the search relevance of your business address.
