Gettin' to Know GetListed.org
The author's views are entirely their own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.
This year my trainer decided to branch off on her own and start a Seattle triathlon training company called TN Multisports. I set up her website and decided to try out Get Listed.org, David Mihm and Patrick Sexton's new site that helps local businesses add their information to major local search engines and check reviews and citations. In Pat's words:
“We hope this tool will help small business owners become aware of the free opportunities to market their companies online, and alleviate some of the confusion many of them feel when it comes to the search engines.”
Since TN Multisports is both a new business and website, I thought it would make for a good case study to test out Get Listed.
I started off by going to the home page and entered the business's name and zip code.
Unsurprisingly, the results reflected the business's brand-spankin-new status:
Get Listed correctly identified that TN Multisports did not have a local listing in Google, Yahoo!, Live Search or Best of the Web. I clicked on "Add your business listing" under Google, which opened Google's Local Business Center listing page in a separate window. I followed the step-by-step instructions and added TN Multisports to Google, Yahoo!, Best of the Web's free local business sign up (they have a premium listing available for $9.99/month) and Live Search. Google gives you the option to receive a follow up via phone or snail mail--I chose mail because I didn't want my trainer to get a phone call and not know what the hell was going on; however, David Mihm recommends verifying by phone if you can because sometimes mail follow ups can get lost. He did acknowledge that Google prefers to have the actual business owner add and claim a business instead of an SEO. Live Search also promised to send a follow up via mail so I could verify the listing. Yahoo! didn't have any sort of follow up, making me wonder how "secure" my listing would be.
At this point I have to play the waiting game for a bit and check back with Get Listed in a couple weeks after I've received my follow ups in the mail and have had a chance to claim my listings. Once I've done that, I can check to see if my listings have received any citations ("mentions" of my business name and address or business name and phone number on other sites, which Get Listed says are "used and tracked by Google and other search engines") or reviews. Citations come from data providers or from sites that Google scrapes that are predominately fed by data providers. For example, SEOmoz is listed as having 2 citations in Google:
The first citation listed is from our own site, and the second one is from Michael Vandemar's blog. His citation isn't a positive one, but unfortunately there's no way to have a citation removed--much like reputation management in the SERPs, we'll have to push the negative result down with other content.
Keeping with SEOmoz, our listing snapshot revealed that we have claimed a listing in Google but not in any of the other locations.
Clicking on "What does this score mean?" pulls up a lightbox that explains what the listing score is and links to a handy checklist that details how you can improve your score:
Going back to the dashboard, the "Try our Advanced Check" link pulled up multiple listings for SEOmoz, one for each of our old business addresses (we've moved twice since I've been employed).
This is actually important information to have because David told me it's important to claim previous addresses and update the information in order to consolidate listings. Also, since one of our old listings has a couple citations, absorbing that listing could hopefully push down the negative citation displaying for our most current location. Lastly, notice how two of the businesses say "SEOmoz" and one says "SEOmoz.org." David stressed to me the importance of keeping business mentions consistent and going with the same name each time.
I loved seeing this information, but I wouldn't have thought to click on "Try our Advanced Check" because above the link it says "Expecting to see a different business?" The result for SEOmoz's current address was exactly what I was expecting, so I didn't bother to run an advanced check. It would be nice if the snapshot said something like "We have found X similar business results that may interest you," which would compel me to click and see that we have to claim and update our old listings.
Some other nice touches on Get Listed include ways to rank higher in the local search engines and a great resource center that features lots of local search marketing advice, information and tips. The site also displays recent local search engine reviews for your business, but I didn't have any for TN Multisports or for SEOmoz, so that's something I definitely want to play with in the future.
Overall, I really like the concept of GetListed.org. I think it's an especially valuable tool for small businesses who maybe can't afford to hire an SEO or don't have a huge marketing budget but want to do what they can in order to have some visibility online. My previous post about the ramifications of the Honey Hole not verifying their listing is a perfect example of how Get Listed could help businesses with local search. It's also great for SEOs like me who aren't experts in local search and need a crash course on which metrics are important and what to do in order to improve local search rankings. Additionally, it's a good resource that I can refer to people to help get them started and going in the right direction.
One potential downside of Get Listed is that you have to keep going back to the site to check your business listings. For example, I have to wait a couple weeks for my follow ups from Google and Live Search to come in the mail. I might forget to check back with Get Listed, especially if my postcards get lost. Some sort of email ping or status tracker would be awesome for forgetful business owners. Pat Sexton has created a Google gadget that you can add to iGoogle, but otherwise you'll have to manually re-query your business via the Get Listed tool.
Other than the "stickiness factor," however, I think that Get Listed is a great new addition to local search and that it has the potential to help out tons of local businesses and SEOs with their local search efforts. I'll definitely keep using it for TN Multisports and some of my friends' small businesses, for site audits and for Q&A, and I'm looking forward to seeing how David and Pat continue to improve upon it and make it even more valuable.
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