It’s not news that one of the biggest factors in your Local Search rankings is the consistency of your business details across the different local online directories. Search engines notice when information is inconsistent, and will mark it as unreliable if it is. The outcome of this distrust is that the business listing is unlikely to rank highly. What’s really important for achieving good local search rankings is to make sure your business is listed in a consistent way across multiple websites and directories, so that it is trusted by Google and will get served higher up in the search results.

When establishing how you rank in local search results, Google scans the internet for mentions of your business name, address, phone number (NAP data) and website URL. These are then compared against other data sources – including major data provider. If Google is able to find your business information on the internet using their data sources, and depending on if that information is consistent across other sources including the details on your website, will hugely influence your local search rankings.

The issue around Google’s mistrust of inconsistent listings is a big enough issue on its own to encourage any business to get this right – and especially agencies that manage local search for clients with multiple locations. There is another incentive – incorrect or out of date information is likely to impact customers too. Incorrect details can cause frustration and result in a negative reaction to your business – wrong phone number or address information does not impact well on a business.

There is no getting away from the fact that the management involved in making sure business details are correct and widely distributed is often manual and very time consumingl. An automated system for updates is the ideal because it reduces the risk of human error and also saves significant time. Businesses that have multiple locations have a real challenge when it comes to consistency as the business name or brand can become changed and distorted – it isn’t wrong, but Google sees it as inconsistent and distrusts it anyway, and that impacts final ranking positions.

So if an automated system is ideal where can you find one? Well until recently there was nothing available in the UK, but now a service called Get Me Everywhere provides the solution. With a single point of access a business can be distributed across the key online directories and sites, ensuring accuracy and consistency.

For more information on Get Me Everywhere and how it could help you, please contact us.