Local citations, here at Birdeye known as Listings, are the thumbprint of a business on the internet. It’s the backbone of any good local SEO strategy, and cannot be ignored.

On the most basic level, local listings refer to primary information about a business, including its Name, Address, and Phone (NAP data). Today, however, online business listings can now include enhanced content, like directions, hours of operation, reviews, photos, videos, menus, incentives, and more. Local listings appear everywhere from company websites and business directories to review sites and social media pages.

Local listings help connect online searchers with offline locations--the more information provided about a business in its local listing, the higher the likelihood of a customer choosing it. Customers have come to expect complete, accurate, rich content; without enough knowledge about your business, they can easily be swayed towards a competitor with more information available.

Inaccurate or missing local listings diminish a business’s credibility, both to search engines and customers, costing the business potential customers. Conversely, consistent, up-to-date, accurate listings boost SEO, increasing click-throughs, conversions, and foot traffic.

Local listings are scattered across business directories, company websites, review sites, mapping and navigation systems, and social media platforms. How often business listings are updated depends on the site--it can be daily, monthly, or never. Manually checking hundreds of listing portals across the web and updating information is tedious, time-consuming and often impossible to manage, especially at scale.

Birdeye’s Listings tool keeps your business information consistent across 50+ sites and directories and constantly scans for missing or inaccurate listings and fixes them so you’re found easily by search engines. This also makes sure that you do not lose potential customers because of outdated or inaccurate contact information about your business.