Unclaimed Business Listings: What Happens and What To Do
Having accurate and up-to-date business listings on online directories, review sites, and other platforms is crucial for local search visibility and reputation management. However, many businesses end up with unclaimed or inaccurate listings that can negatively impact their online presence. Here's an overview of what happens when you have an unclaimed business listing and tips on what to do about it:
What Happens When You Have an Unclaimed Listing
- Inaccurate information gets displayed about your business. When a listing is unclaimed, the directory site has to populate it with whatever limited data they have, which is often wrong or outdated. This means potential customers see incorrect business name, address, phone number, hours, and other details.
- You lose control over your online reputation. Positive reviews may go to duplicate listings rather than your real claimed listing, while negative reviews on the unclaimed profiles can unfairly impact perceptions about your business.
- Your local SEO and visibility suffers. Unclaimed listings dilute your local search presence across the web, making it harder for customers to find your official website and listings.
- Scammers can take over listings. Competitors or scammers can maliciously claim your unclaimed business listings to intercept calls/leads meant for your business. They can even change the listings to promote their own business instead of yours.
- You miss out on customer insights. Unclaimed listings mean you don't have access to the analytics and reviews that claimed listings provide to better understand customer sentiments and engagement.
What to Do About Unclaimed Listings
- Search for your business listings. Regularly search online directories, review sites, social media, and local search engines to look for inaccurate or duplicate listings. Use quotes around your business name to find exact matches.
- Claim listings. Claim your rightful listings by going through the verification process required by each platform. You can do this for your business at no cost, but due to the fact that you are just coming out of “Unclaimed” status, it is going to take a lot of time and resources for anyone who is not certified or had experience in creating, updating and maintaining these procedures. We specialize in this process and are able to get your listing to appear within the top 10 ranked listings within as little as 7 business days for most relevant keywords!
- Fix incorrect information. Once claimed, update listings with your current business name, address, phone number, website, hours, and other details as needed.
- Consolidate duplicates. See if duplicates can be merged or removed. Duplication splits your reviews, presence, and local search authority so aim for accuracy.
- Add missing info. Enhance your listings with complete descriptions, photos, menus, services, and other relevant information searchers look for.
- Encourage reviews. Ask happy customers to leave positive reviews on your actual claimed listings to improve sentiments and rankings.
- Be patient. It takes time for search engines and directories to reflect listing changes and ownership, so continue claiming, updating, and monitoring on an ongoing basis. With the advanced knowledge, certifications and experience that we have, we can help to give a huge traffic boost to your online business profile in the shortest amount of time!
Keeping business listings claimed, updated, and consolidated is essential for managing your brand identity and discoverability online. Stay vigilant in looking for unclaimed or inaccurate profiles and be proactive in optimizing and enhancing your true listings. Putting in this continual effort provides better control over how your business is found and perceived in the local marketplace.
