Vendasta’s data on 100,000 unique local businesses across North America reveals that an average business has 68 different online listings. Of these, phone numbers were found to be accurate on only 76% of the listings. This is especially problematic in a world where over 65% of users search for local shopping information online — and are disappointed when listing data turns out to be inaccurate.
Vendasta’s Citation Builder alleviates much of this struggle for local businesses and helps them submit accurate information to two major data providers - TransUnion's Neustar/Localeze, and Foursquare; to ensure they can be found online by their customers.
The benefits of Citation Builder are:
- Publicly available business data is created from yellow pages, white pages directory assistance, and phone company records. This data may not be the same data the business itself believes is important.
- Public data may not include rich data - such as hours of operation, services, products, website, category, payment methods, and photos.
- Managing that business listing information is a process, meaning that the data needs to be managed over a long period of time for the sources to both trusts and use the information provided. Think of it as a daily vitamin - not a quick fix.
- Citation Builder helps build a “Citation Effect” by having multiple sources consume and use the same consistent business data.
Two primary positive outcomes occur:
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- Google’s WebCrawler finds the same information in multiple places and adds more confidence to their business data, and
- Good backlinks are created, with more referring sources to the business’ website creating better search engine optimization SEO.