Why does Factual matter to your visibility in the local search results? Because it feeds info on your business to a bunch of other important sites.
David Mihm recently made that fact pretty clear, in his update to the Local Search Ecosystem infographic:
Image source: https://moz.com/blog/2013-local-search-ecosystems
Apple Maps ace Andrew Shotland has also explained that Factual is a major source of business info (AKA data-supplier) for Apple Maps.
So that makes it official: Factual matters to your visibility in local search.
The good news is that, as of this writing, it’s easy to get listed there. Here are a couple methods.
Update 10/1/13: You can also skip ahead to the comment kindly left by Bradley Geilfuss, the Senior Product Manager at Factual.
Method 1. Send an email to datacontributions@factual.com. Include your business info and ask (politely!) to be added
Darren Shaw described the process in a little more detail in a comment on the recent post I did on his blog. Here’s what he said, in case you missed it:
Factual doesn’t have an “add your business” feature. To get your listing added, you email them and they’ll create a listing for you.
Before emailing them, I’d suggest first checking closely to see if you’re already listed by searching here: https://www.factual.com/data/t/places. If you are listed, you can login and additional details to the listing – look for the little “edit” tag on the right side of the map. It’s cool how they show you the sources of the listing data under the “Crosswalk” section.
If you’re not listed, look at all the other listings to see what fields they accept and make sure you include all the applicable fields when you email them.
When you’re sure you’re not already listed, and you have gathered all the information needed for your listing, email them at datacontributions@factual.com to request adding your business to their database.
Method 2. Fill out the form at https://www.factual.com/contact. Your request will end up at the same place.
By the way – just to get back to Darren’s point about how you should check first to see if you’re listed – here’s what you’ll see if you search for your business at https://www.factual.com/data/t/places and find that you’re already listed:
Here’s what your listing will look like:
I’ve submitted requests for a few clients who weren’t already listed on Factual, and if anything noteworthy or unusual happens, I’ll update this post. Update 9/30/13: Based on what I’ve seen so far, it takes 5-7 days for Factual to approve and add a new listing, if you use either of the above methods.
Any experience with Factual so far? Leave a comment.