How Do Online Business Listings Work?

Online business listings make it easy for customers to find you. That’s a key growth factor for local businesses. Consumers search for businesses on the web, and being easily found is crucial. Luckily, there are many online business listing websites that help businesses accomplish this task. But the question is, how do you find reliable ones, and how do online business listings work?
A local business listing can be found on search engines, social media sites, industry associations, business directories, and other sites that provide brief profiles of local businesses. The online business listing contains the NAP (Business Name, Address, Phone #), relevant business information, business description, website, social media page(s) links, working hours, directions, reviews, photos of products, services, etc. It would be like a mini website for local businesses. With these listings, businesses can improve their online visibility, significantly increasing the number of customers they attract and growing sales.
Online directories act as a bridge between clients and businesses. Directory entries typically contain information about the business and links to the business’ websites. This helps local businesses to get more visibility in the search engine result pages.
The majority of business owners know that web directories exist, but they are unaware that many websites automatically publish their business information without their knowledge. Frequently, these types of websites contain errors or incomplete/incorrect business information.
In such cases, business owners may have a negative view of online business listings altogether. However, listing your business accurately on the authenticated platform can help you increase your brand awareness and sales.
So, the question is, where does the information for online business listings originate? Let us tell you!!
The ultimate source of the information used in the web directories comes from the business owners because the owner registered a business with the required government agencies. That’s how information for online business listings can be originated without taking any consent from the business owner. But it’s an unethical practice. However, we are going to share the following four key sources that feed the creation of online listings.
New businesses are required to register with various government regulatory agencies. So, it would not be wrong to say that government sources are responsible for sharing the largest portion of online listing information. The information contains phone numbers, business details, etc.
Data aggregators play a vital role in this regard. They acquire all the business information available online and provide it to hundreds of web directories, such as; Google, Facebook, and YP.com.
There are four major data aggregators, such as; Factual, Acxiom, Infogroup, and Localeze. It is observed that web directories rely on these data providers for their information. However, data aggregators build citations on major sites.
Search engine data is another source of gathering data. The main search engines are Google and Bing, and automatically they create business listings on their Google Maps, Google My Business, and Bing Places for business websites. They verify business listing data with the owner and share their data with other listing platforms.
Online business listing data comes from user-generated content (UGC). This type of content includes text, videos, and photos. Facebook is the best example that depends on user-generated content. UGC provides online listing websites, particularly with highly relevant content. However, this is how the information can be originated for creating business listings.