Business Listings

A listing (or "citation") is a mention of a business's main contact data (NAP) in an online business directory or map (social media like Facebook can also serve as business directories). A listing can also give searchers essential information about a business's URL, working hours, the description of the business, photos, and more. Having a local business listed in business directories and maps can bring many useful opportunities to the table, such as:

• ✔Improvement of search engine visibility and overall brand credibility.
• ✔Increased chances of ranking well in local searches.
• ✔Building brand loyalty through good customer relationship management.

Features in Business Listings

To get a detailed overview of a company’s listings (aka citations), particularly in the business directories that the system monitors, go to the Business Listings section. Here, you will learn which trusted local business directories and maps list/don’t list a business, what type of NAP (name, address, and phone number of a business) errors are present in what listings, and what a business’s average listing score is. At the top of the dashboard, you can find two main widgets: Overview and NAP.

The Overview section provides information on how many directories list/don’t list a business, how many listings were added correctly, and how many have errors.

The NAP widget outlines the number of listings that have/don't have errors related to a company’s information. They are also split by error type. The list of parameters analyzed in this section includes company name, address, phone number, URL, and duplicates. By clicking on numbers, you’ll filter the list of directories below and see the specific listings.

To get a higher score, a business must be presented in many different directories, have a high location rating, and be mentioned without NAP errors in said directories.

You can track the metrics mentioned above for all locations, or separately for each location. For this, select a location from the drop-down list at the top of the screen. To get a bigger-picture view of all locations, choose a corresponding option from this list.

As you scroll down the page, you’ll see the business listings table with all the relevant information (regarding a company’s presence in directories as well as maps monitored by the system). When clicking on the three dots menu next to the directory name, you can either open the directory website or exclude it from the check. Once it is excluded, the tool will not check it during updates. An excluded directory is also left out of the Overview widget and the location's listing score — it stops counting towards total listings, listed listings, error counts and duplicates. Exclude a directory when it is genuinely irrelevant to the business, not to tidy up the table, because doing so changes the score.

In terms of fields, this table includes the following:

1. Directory (online directories that are checked for the presence of a specific business).
2. Type (the type of online directory: local directory, map, or social media).
3. Sync Status (the current state of the synchronization process).
4. Presence (the status of the business relative to a particular directory: listed or not listed).
5. Errors (types of errors that were found in a particular online directory).

There are multiple Sync Statuses, including:

The Presence column also features different variations:

The data in this table can help you understand which directories you should add a business to so you can increase its traffic and, thereby, sales. Plus, not only can you monitor and fix errors in a business's name, address, phone number, and URL, but you can even remove duplicates from these directories.

Also, you can find a business card button next to the directories that mention a corresponding business.

By clicking on it, you'll see a pop-up window with a business's main information (business name, address, postal code, and phone number), as well as this directory's URL. On the main Business Listings page this pop-up is read-only — it shows the detected listing data and does not offer an action for removing the directory from this location's list.

Click Open to view the business details and the directory URL.

To exclude a directory from a location check, select Don’t check from the three-dot menu. The directory remains in the table but is excluded from the listing score and Overview. You can re-enable it at any time.

To download all data presented in the Business Listings section in PDF format, click on the Export button at the top upper corner. Your browser will download it automatically and within seconds.

Which directories are checked and synced

There is no single, fixed list of directories. The directories in the table are selected for each location, based on:

• Country. Each location is checked against the directories available in its country, plus directories that apply to all countries. For example, Yellowpages.com is available only for locations in the USA.
• Business category. The location’s primary category is used when checking and syncing listings, so some industry-specific directories may be offered only for matching categories.

Sync vs. presence check. Not every directory in the table can receive listing updates from SE Ranking. For each directory, the Sync Status column shows whether your listing can be synced there for this location. If it shows Sync unavailable, SE Ranking still checks your presence and NAP data in that directory, but can’t push updates to it. Directories where presence is checked include Google Business Profile, Facebook, Yelp, Bing, Apple Maps, Foursquare, TomTom, HERE, MapQuest, BBB, and Tripadvisor, depending on the location’s country.

To see exactly which directories apply to a location, select that location from the drop-down list at the top of the Business Listings page. If a directory you need is missing, use Suggest Directory (see below). 

How to filter table data

You can filter this data according to your needs by clicking on the button right above the table.

Here, you can apply several filters to temporarily hide data in the table. These filters are:

1. Directory. You can choose to tick only the directories that you want to focus on.
2. Status. By applying this filter, you can get a list of all directories where a specific business is/isn’t listed. Excluded directories are hidden while this filter is active.
3. Errors. You can filter directories based on different types of errors: address errors, phone errors, URL errors, no errors.
4. Duplicates. This filter lets you identify online directories with/without duplicates.

After applying all the filters that you need, click on the Apply Filters button.

How to suggest a new directory

If you feel like the list of offered directories could be expanded, click on the Suggest Directory button above the business listings table.

We have added two new directories, Just Landed and Yellowpages.com (the latter is available only for Locations in the USA), to the Business Listings section in Local Marketing. It is much easier now to check if your connected business locations have listings in these directories and identify any errors in those listings. Yellow Pages has also been added as a review source, so the tool will gather and help you analyze reviews of your business locations posted in Yellow Pages.