Understanding the Important Role of Digital Listings
In the last few years the importance of digital/local listing and reputation management has significantly increased. Local listings include information about your business – think of it like a modern day phone book on steroids. Google, Facebook, Yelp, Yellow Pages Online, and Yahoo are just some of the online directories that capture local listings. A local listing for a business will include important information like address, phone number, hours and amenities. A survey conducted by Uberall found that 82% of mobile shoppers use their phones to conduct “near me” searches and 60% of respondents indicate that they click on what they see first. A “near me” search is when someone uses Google from their phone to find a product or store close by. For example, searching for “gas station near me”. In the past two years, "near me" searches have seen significant growth. According to research conducted by Chatmeter, from 2013 to 2017 there was a 900% increase in "near me" searches. Additionally, in the last two years there has been around 200% growth for phrases like "store open near me now". The numbers are pretty clear, local listings are critical in allowing you to reach your intended customers during those moments when they desire your services or products. To support this, Sinclair has made strategic changes to our website and partnered with Chatmeter to manage local listings for Sinclair branded locations.
Why is management of locaton listings important?
Incorrect business listings can cause a frustrating customer experience and hurt your search rankings. While Google isn't the only search provider, they are the most often used. Google has a very detailed algorithim that determines what locations will be returned when a user does a "near me" search. The most important factor in ranking high in a local search is for your business information to be correct and consistent on multiple provider sites. Just managing a Google listing for your business isn’t enough. Sinclair’s partnership with Chatmeter allows us to save time and keep information on listings up to date on all provider sites by simply updating once in our dashboard. Chatmeter also has direct relationships with providers, allowing for more timely updates. While there are multiple providers, most user searches happen on Google. When someone does a “near me” search, Google will return the top three options based on relevance, distance and prominence.
What do you need to do to make sure Google presents your location in the top three bucket when someone does a "near me" search?
The most important factor is accuracy of information. This means your listing has the right categories, naming convention and hours – across multiple providers. This is where prominence plays an important role. Google is going to recognize a location with the name “Sinclair” more prominently than a listing with the name “Joe’s Gas”. Sinclair, through our partnership with Chatmeter, has optimized our listings. Our digital team will be reaching out to sites that we don’t currently have access to. This is service that we offer free to all Sinclair branded locations. We want to make sure your location has the best chance of returning in the top three bucket and that you have elevated your digital listing. If Sinclair is not managing your listing and/or if you have questions, please reach out to Lindsey Schleiger (lschleiger@sinclairoil.com) to set this up. You will still have ownership over your listing, but will be able to take advantage of the optimization and prominence Sinclair has with Google listings.
