Every residential built environment businesses has a local presence online in directories like BizJournals, Manta, MapQuest, Yellowpages and hundreds more. Each directory listing has a citation with a name address and phone number known as a NAP. The accuracy of this information can directly affect the bottom line of residential architects, interior designers, remodelers, builders and landscape design firms. Citations weigh heavily in Google and Bing search algorithms and firms with a higher number of accurate citations are apt to rank higher in search results than those firms with fewer citations. While the internet has opened up the possibilities to extend your businesses reach to potential consumers, the majority of home design and construction firms operate within a much smaller geographic area around their physical location.

So how do you use citations to get found online locally? 

Local search is one of the fastest-growing segments in online marketing. Search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing all offer localized search for businesses.  To compete and place high in the local SERPs you need to focus your efforts on creating localized listings for these and other search engines.  This is precisely the niche that MOZ Local is filling and they have provided a tool that will show you how your business is listed across web directories. 

What is MOZ Local? 

Managing your social media and online business listings can be a chore and take hours of time in order to be effective as a marketing tool. MOZ Local is a local search “distributor” or “hub” for lack of a better term. MOZ Local works with local search data aggregators as a kind of “one-stop shop” for managing your business listings. You submit your location data and business information to MOZ Local and they then create, push and maintain your business listings on the sites, apps and directories that factor into local search results. Once you’ve entered your business data on MOZ, they then push that data to the five major aggregators; Acxiom, Factual, Infogroup Foursquare, and Neustar Localeze. 

MOZ helps you to establish a consistent brand across all five of these databases and on other popular websites and directories. This means that as a landscape design firm, you can input your data once, and be searchable across all of the local search directories your potential clients might use to find a “local” landscape design firm. 

This is very valuable to a business. Aside from the consistency MOZ offers, when someone searches online for a local company, search engines and many mobile apps rely on location data from these five data sources to return their results. If your listing is incorrect, or inconsistent between these aggregators, you may end up not appearing in these local searches, and never be found by motivated consumers who are ready to make a purchase! 

MOZ Local allows you to input your information once, and then they handle distributing it to the data aggregators meaning your information is consistent, and current. Managing your own listings on all of the major aggregators, websites and directories that offer local search takes hours of work and can cost hundreds of dollars in staff time, plus there is always the possibility of inconsistent, or inaccurate information being input due to user error. 

Working with MOZ Local is an affordable - $84/annually - centralized online option that assures your listing information is correct, accurate, and consistent across all digital media. In fact, MOZ emails reminders to update, re-verify information and delete duplicate listings when needed.

MOZ Local vs Yext vs DIY

Yext is a Moz local competitor but at $500+/- annually for the service, it is a non-starter for most of our clients. The Yext dashboard may provide you more information but once correctly set up, you should only need to check your listings once in a great while. The DIY approach of submitting information to each directory will require a username and password for 50+ sites and plan on uploading the half dozen or so business attributes and images local directories require to each of them. 

It’s a smart business decision that will simplify your online marketing efforts and ensure that when someone in your area is searching for a landscape design firm, your business information will come up! With the many local search options available online, and new ones constantly being added, it makes sense to take a “one and done” approach to your online location search marketing. MOZ Local will free up your time to focus on growing your core business, not chasing down new search engines!

About Michael Conway and Means-of-Production

My firm builds Squarespace websites, Houzz profiles, and content marketing and advertising solutions for architects, interior designers, design-build contractors and landscape design firms. Our all-in-one tactics attract the right clients with exceptional architectural photography and brand messaging that sets you apart from the competition. Contact me for a free-of-charge consultation and marketing review. It takes about 40 minutes and you'll be provided a list of actionable improvements designed to solve your specific marketing problems.