Claim Your Free Business Listings (Part 1) - Get your business listed on Google+ Local, Google Places, Google Maps, Bing Business Portal, Yahoo Local, MapQuest, Yelp, FourSquare, and TripAdvisor.com. A "How To" Guide to Claiming and Optimizing your free listings, and submitting a listing request. A complement to a small business's search engine optimization (SEO) plan.

1. Claim and Optimize Your
Free Business Listings
Part 1
by Mary Anne Baker

2. About Mary Anne
● Owner of INNsights Internet Marketing, based in Sylva,
NC.
● 28 Years Experience in Destination Marketing, Tourism,
and Hospitality as the VP of a large resort company in
Florida.
● Originally from Ohio, spent 28 years in Florida, moved full
time to the Sylva area in 2011.
● Dedicated to helping small business owners market their
businesses on the Internet so that today's consumer can
find them.

3. Basic Internet Marketing Strategy for
Small Business
● Website
● Claim and Optimize Local
Business Listings – predominantly
Google Places
● Social Media - Facebook Business
Page at a minimum.
● Email Marketing

4. What You Will Learn in This Class:
● This class is for local businesses who want to be found
on the internet locally.
● By claiming and optimizing your free business listings,
your business will become visible on local search
results and on mobile phone map searches.
● The way consumers find a local business has
fundamentally changed in the last few years. Small
businesses can no longer rely on printed directories,
local advertising, or passing foot traffic to attract new
customers.
● When was the last time you saw someone walking
around town with a paper map in their hands?

5. How Consumers Search for a Local
Business
● 97% of consumers search for a business on the Internet.
● 2/3 of consumers use local search weekly and even more
importantly
● 70% of mobile searches lead to action within one hour.
● You no longer control how people find you. Therefore, it is
essential to have your information everywhere that
consumers search.
● People who search on mobile apps aren't just browsing
the web, they are actively looking for a place to eat, stay,
or shop. If you’re not listed, they won’t find you.

6. What is Local Search?
● Local search is any type of search, whether
from a desktop or mobile device, that
includes the name of the city/town within the
search term.
● Also known as “geo-targeted” keywords,
examples include:
○ Restaurants in Bryson City
○ Auto Repair in Bryson City, NC
○ Bryson City Hair Salons

8. What We Will Review Tonight
These local search sites:
● Google+ Local/Google Maps/Google Places
● Yahoo Local
● Bing Business Portal
● MapQuest (AOL)
These top review sites:
● Yelp
● FourSquare
● TripAdvisor (for lodging, attractions, and restaurants)
Next class (Part 2) will cover how to manage these listings and
also include instructions on how to track, respond to, and
promote your reviews/listings.

9. What does Google+ Local/Google
Maps/Google Places do?
● It lets you create a place for yourself/ your business and
it shows it along with a map (google maps)
● This is local powerful search, plus listing on google
maps makes it so effective.
● Your local listing will be found in Google+ making it easy
for people to review and share your business with
friends and around the web.
● People search on the move, and google maps makes it
easy to reach your business.

10. What You Need to Know About
Google+ Local
● Every business listing must have a mailing address. If
you work from home or you are a mobile business you
can specify a “service area” in the sign up process and
choose to hide your physical address.
● There should be only one listing per physical location.
● New features coming soon - Over the next months,
Google is making lots of changes to improve their local
listings experience and bring the community, identity,
sharing & relationships of Google+ to local businesses.

11. How to Get Listed in Google's Local
Search Results:
● Go to maps.google.com
● Type in your business address and click
“search/look up”
● If your business does not show up, go to
www.google.com/places, and login to your
Google account.

12. Yahoo Local
● Go to http://local.yahoo.com/
● Search for your business. If it is listed, click on “edit
business details”, and then click on “edit as business
owner.”
● If it is not listed, go to http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/
○ Click on “Marketing Dashboard”
○ Click on “get Dashboard Free”
○ This will take you to “Submit Your Business
Information”

13. Bing Local
● Go to www.BingBusinessPortal.com
● Login to your Bing account (or set one up)
● Under “My Businesses,” Click on the “+” button (next to
the search bar)
● Bing will take you through the process of searching for
your business first and offer you a choice of either
claiming your listing or adding a new listing.

14. MapQuest (formerly known as AOL Maps)
● Go to www.mapquest.com
● Search for your business address. If your
business is found, click on it and click “Claim
this business.”
● If your business is not found, go to https:
//listings.mapquest.com/apps/listing, and
either sign up for a business listings account,
or sign in.
● Click on “add or claim” listing to begin the
process.

15. Yelp - What Is It?
● Yelp is an online city/town guide that helps people find
places to eat, shop, drink, relax and play, based on the
informed opinions of an active community of locals in
the know.
● Sixty percent of Yelp searches are from desktops
● The company's mobile apps are used by about 7 million
people.
● Yelp.com gets 78 million visitors per month.
● Like other social media companies, the trend is
definitely favoring mobile.

16. Yelp - Set Up Your Listing
Go to www.yelp.com and search for your
business. If it is listed, look for “Work Here?
Unlock This Business Page” and follow the
directions from there. Once you have claimed
your listing, your business account will be
located at: https://biz.yelp.com/
If your business is NOT listed, search for your
category in your city/town. Go to the bottom of
the search results (there could be more than
one page of results) and look for a red button
that says, “Add a Business.”

17. FourSquare: What Is It?
● Foursquare connects people to businesses.
● Foursquare is an app for your phone. It's
also a website.
● People use it to find the best place to go
based on what their friends & experts
recommend.
● They check in at businesses in the real world
& leave tips to tell others what they love.
● Foursquare also has free tools to help
businesses get discovered & connect with
customers.

18. FourSquare - Set Up Your Listing
● Go to www.FourSquare.com and search for
your business in your city/town. If it is
already listed, click on the listing and look on
the bottom right for “Do you manage this
location? Claim here”
● If your business is not listed, go to http:
//business.foursquare.com/, set up an
account, then click on the orange button that
says “Claim Your Business.”

19. TripAdvisor - What Is It?
TripAdvisor is the world's largest travel
community. Listings available for lodging,
restaurants, and attractions.
○ More than 60 million monthly visitors
○ 32 million members
○ Over 75 million reviews and opinions
○ 30 sites in 21 languages

20. TripAdvisor - Set Up Your Listing
● Go to www.tripadvisor.com and search for your
business. If it is already listed, scroll to the bottom of the
listing, and look for - Owners: What's your side of the
story? If you own or manage “___________________”,
register now for free tools to enhance your listing, attract
new reviews, and respond to reviewers.
● Click on “Manage Your Listing”, where you will be
prompted to set up a business account and create your
listing.

21. TripAdvisor Continued:
If your business is not listed, go to:
http://www.tripadvisor.com/GetListedAccommodation for
accommodations
http://www.tripadvisor.com/GetListedRestaurant for
restaurants
http://www.tripadvisor.com/pages/getlisted_attraction_new.
html for attractions
http://www.flipkey.com/list/ for vacation rentals (these are
paid listings, however a free trial is offered)

22. Other Internet Directory Sites:
● www.CitySearch.com
● www.Local.com
● www.YP.com
● www.MerchantCircle.com
● www.Manta.com
For Restaurants Only:
● www.UrbanSpoon.com
● www.OpenTable.com
● www.MenuPages.com
● www.WhereToEat.com

23. Additional Information
● To ensure that your small business is listed in
major search directories for your small
business, go to Google.com and search for
your business - including the name of your
city/town.
● Click on every search result on the first 2-3
pages (not local results), to see what
directories are coming up strong in Google
search - Chances are very good that listings
on these sites are free - you just have to claim
them and update them.

24. Thank you for attending tonight's class!