Following is an example of why it’s important to have the information that appears in your Directory Listings be as consistent and accurate as possible:
Let’s say your business is named Laurel’s Accounting Services and you have a number of Directory Listings (aka Citations) set up for your business on places like Facebook, Yelp, SuperPages, Citysearch, Bing, Foursquare, Yahoo Local etc. What you may not be aware of is that the information that appears in these different Directories may not match each other and may actually conflict. Here’s why this could be a really big problem for you:
If half of these Directories have your business name listed as “Laurel’s Accounting Services” and the other half have your business name listed as “Laurel’s Accounting Svcs., Inc.”, this is actually a signal to Google that your business name is only about 50% reliable. If another Accountant, say Hardey’s Accounting Services, has their business name listed correctly on 4 out of 5 of the Directories they’re listed in (about 80% reliable), then Google has a strong signal that their information is more reliable. In this example*, Hardey’s Accounting Service would probably be listed above you in a Google search by a potential customer because businesses that have more reliable and consistent information get a higher rank in Google search results.
There are several free services available online where you can check what Directories you are listed on and if your information is consistent and accurate. You are also welcome to contact me and I’ll be happy to have this information prepared for your business and sent to you.
*This assumes all other factors being equal and doesn’t take into account SEO or other work to improve ranking in Google.
