Local Visibility System

The Last Local SEO Guy You'll Ever Need

factual

Do You Really Need a Facebook Page for Each Location of Your Business?

by 19 Comments

https://www.flickr.com/photos/ecastro/4936469618/

Last year a client of mine with multiple locations asked me whether she really needed to bother creating a Facebook page for each location.  She wanted to have just the mothership page, for her flagship location.  Simpler.  Less hassle.

Less benefit, too.

I suggested creating a Facebook page for all locations (which we did), and mothballed away my long answer for the next person who asked.

Then the question came up again on Google+.  I offered a chopped-down answer there, but figured it was time to release the director’s cut.

Here’s why you should have a Facebook page for every location of your business (or at least for the locations you care about):

1.  Customers want and expect to find a Facebook page for the location nearest them.

2.  Google is more likely to show the Facebook page for your nearest location when would-be customers people in that area search for you by name. People in NYC see your NYC page, people in New Jersey see your Jersey page, etc. – even if they type exactly the same thing into Google.  Google is pretty location-sensitive, and your strategy shouldn’t be any less so.

3.  It’s an excellent “barnacle SEO” opportunity.

4.  People don’t want to feel like they’re working with a satellite office, or with “corporate.”

5.  You’ll have a chance at ranking well in Facebook – which is important to the extent that would-be customers go there and actually use Facebook’s search box to find what they’re looking for. Most people don’t do that, but you want to be visible to the ones who do.

6.  It’s another place to get reviews, and a mighty important one at that. You don’t want only your “flagship” location to have Facebook reviews.

7.  Want to use Moz Local? For verification and anti-spam purposes, it requires you to have a Facebook page or a Google My Business page for each location you want to load into Moz Local.  Now, the tool isn’t always good at verifying you by looking at your Google page (for instance, you’ll run into problems if your address is hidden).  That’s when your Facebook page may come in handy.  Belt and suspenders.

8.  It’s a good local citation.

9.  Even you don’t create a Facebook page for a given location, one might be auto-generated for you anyway. If Factual gets it meathooks on your local-business data, it will feed that data to Facebook, which will pump out an “unofficial” page.  You may or may not want that page, which may or may not even have the correct info on your business.

10.  Wouldn’t you want the option of posting content that’s specific to one local market or the other? Rather than generic piffle that everybody’s supposed to like but that nobody really likes.

11.  You don’t even have to spend time being active on all your Facebook pages (or any of them, for that matter). It’s nice if you do, but not essential.  The page just needs to exist, if only for the people who expect to find it, and as a vessel for reviews.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/evenkolder/16555476280/

 

12.  It’s quick and easy to create each page. Don’t do it if you have a good reason that I didn’t address, but don’t skip it out of laziness.

13.  You can always set up “Locations,” if you want what Facebook used to call a parent-child structure between your “main” page and your pages for specific locations. Here’s a great guide on Facebook “Locations” from Sweet IQ.

—

Can you think of reasons I didn’t mention?

Any arguments against creating a Facebook page for each location?

Leave a comment!

Who Provides Facebook’s Local-Business Data?

by 7 Comments

I’ve never created a Facebook page for Local Visibility System, LLC:

Sure, I created a Facebook page for myself about 10 years ago (and haven’t spent any time there in probably 7-8 years).  But I didn’t make one for the business, because I prefer my site and email list to be home base.  Call me crazy.

Some years ago I created listings on the basic sites.  Lest the shoemaker’s son go unshod, every now and then I do a quick check on my basic listings / citations.  As a true local SEO geek, I like to see which listings are new, which have changed, which have gone the way of tie-dye and free love, etc.

My first stop was (as always) Moz Local, where I noticed that seemingly new, threadbare Facebook page for the first time.

The first thing I noticed about the Facebook page was that it didn’t include the “LLC” at the end of my business name.  I always include the “LLC” in my business name (not that it matters for SEO purposes).  That tells me that Facebook is probably grabbing my business info from a place where I’m listed simply as “Local Visibility System.”

So I checked out the usual suspects.  Turns out I’m not on Acxiom or LocalEze.

Then I checked InfoGroup.  I’ve been listed there for a long time, but the name doesn’t match.

So what site caused Facebook to squirt out a business page for me?

The answer is…Factual.

It was a Moz Local scan that alerted me to the name-match in the first place.

If I was paying attention a couple months ago I might not have had to do any gumshoeing.  Turns out Factual announced (quietly) its local-data partnership with Facebook.

I know I didn’t have a business Facebook page before then, so it all makes sense now.

According to David Mihm’s Local Search Ecosystem graphic, it’s possible that other sources still feed Facebook directly.  But the Factual-Facebook partnership is so new that maybe it’s now exclusive.

Anyway, on a practical level, why should you care that Factual feeds business info to Facebook?

  1. It can help you clean up duplicate Facebook pages – which are a common burr in the saddle.
  1. If you’re having problems making changes to or removing a Facebook page, try to update Factual (manually, or through one of its trusted partners, or through their API if you’re a hardcore geek).
  1. If you do not want a Facebook page for your business, try to squash it at Factual.
  1. If you don’t want your address showing on your Facebook page, try to get the address concealed at Factual.
  1. In general, Factual may be more important than you’d think. (It’s long been a data-provider for Apple Maps, for instance.)

—

Any Facebook or Factual fiascos you’d like to share?

Do you know of any other little-known data-feeding relationships between sites?

Questions?

Leave a comment!

Factual Improves “Submit a Business” Form

by 13 Comments

Now you don’t even have to wade through the guidelines and send an email to the right people to get your business listed on Factual.

You can just go to https://www.factual.com/contact and type your info to the right of the prompts in the “Your Message” box.

I don’t believe the “Factual ID” field is required unless you’re editing a listing that’s already in the system but incorrect.

As I wrote before, Factual makes it easy for you to list your business.  They seem to take maybe two-thirds of my clients’ submissions on the first try, so sometimes you need to keep working on your supporting citations and try again later.  Other than that, it’s a pain-free process.

They’re making it real easy for you now.  Go forth and list yourself on Factual.  It’s free, and important.

Business Categories Lists for Major Local Search Sites

by 27 Comments

Categories are the forgotten child of local SEO.

Though they don’t get much attention, categories do get respect: “Proper Category Associations” is the #1 “Foundational Ranking Factor” listed on 2013’s Local Search Ranking Factors study.  (I was one of the people who ranked them up there, and I’m glad other local-searchers agree.)

Picking as many relevant categories as you can is probably the easiest way to make progress on your Google+ Local, Bing Places, Apple Maps, Yelp, and other rankings.

Choosing the right ones is sometimes easier said than done.  Google no longer allows “custom” categories.  That’s nice in a couple of ways: You can choose up to 10 categories, and it’s nice that it’s much harder now to get penalized by accidentally specifying a custom category that Google doesn’t consider kosher.

Still, the categories you want to pick are either on Google’s list or they aren’t.  Which may leave you feeling hamstrung if your business is specialized or “niche.”

Fortunately for us, the categories you can pick on other sites seem to help Google determine what type of business yours is – and what terms you should rank for.

They’re also a huge factor in your rankings on pretty much every other site worth being listed on.

The name of the game is to know your options for categories, on as many sites as possible.  Most of them don’t make it easy to browse all your options.  That’s why I’ve rounded up a bunch of category lists, so you can find the relevant ones easily.

Check out these lists and see if you’ve listed your business under the best categories possible:

Search engines

Google – Browse Mike Blumenthal’s Google Places Category Tool

Bing Places – See my list of Bing business categories (new)

Apple Maps – Dig through this monstrous list put together by Andrew Shotland

Data-aggregators

ExpressUpdate – Pick from OSHA’s Standard Industrial Categories

LocalEze – See my post on LocalEze categories

Factual – Refer to this list when submitting your Factual listing

IYPs

Yelp – Dig through Yelp’s somewhat-buried list, or see my post on Yelp categories

InsiderPages – See this

AngiesList – Here you go

—

Those are just the category lists I’ve found so far or put together myself.  I’m sure you or I could easily find full lists of categories for rinky-dink sites that nobody’s ever heard of.  But there are a few category lists I’d still like to have.

The sites on my wish-list at the moment are CitySearch, YellowPages, Local.Yahoo.com, and Acxiom (MyBusinessListingManager.com).  Please let me know if you find or make a list of all the categories allowed on those sites!

How to Add Your Business to Factual

by 23 Comments

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.