Search and discovery has changed a lot and it is hard to create a presence in many places. One way businesses are able to build their online visibility is through directory listings. The key though is making sure each listing is complete with accurate and consistent information on your business. That's where Yext comes in. During this webinar, Christian Ward, a Local Data Expert of Yext, discusses how local data works and the tools a business needs to be successful with turning their local business listings into an effective lead generation channel.

1. Turn Your Business
Listings into Local Leads

2. Turn Your Business Listings into
Local Leads
• Search and discovery has changed a lot and it is hard to
create a presence in many places.
• Surefire Social gives you the highest odds of appearing
where your customers are looking for you at the right
moment - moment of thought to use your business
Why am I not getting more leads?

3. Turn Your Business Listings into
Local Leads
Who is Surefire Social?
• 150 Experts Digital Marketers on staff
• Over 2000 locations managed
• Services and technology for successful
local business
Among Top 35% of fastest
growing companies

4. Turn Your Business Listings into
Local Leads
Thousands of Options

5. Turn Your Business Listings into
Local Leads
Lead Performance
SurePulse - Digital Marketing Control
Center
Lead Sources
Publishing
Monitoring

6. Turn Your Business Listings into
Local Leads
SurePulse Integration with Yext
PowerListings

7. Turn Your Business Listings into
Local Leads
• EVP of Partnerships at Yext
• Background in creating and leading information and
data companies: his focus is to help other businesses
leverage the power of the Yext platform in their own
strategies.
• Prior to joining Yext, he was the Chief Data Officer at
Infogroup and the Global Head of Content Innovation at
Thomson Reuters.
• Holds a B.S. in Finance from the University of Florida.
Local Data Expert: Christian Ward

8. Turn Your Business Listings into
Local Leads
• Introduction
• Digital Presence Management
• How Local Data Works
• Your Tool to Success
Agenda

9. Digital Presence
Management

10. Turn Your Business Listings into
Local Leads
It’s easy to see how offline presence problems can
compromise businesses
Brodie Mart Town of Hilsdale Dynasty Buffet Elmhurst Hospital

11. Turn Your Business Listings into
Local Leads
For every $1 that
consumers spend online,
those consumers will spend
nearly $15 in physical
stores
Offline Sales Dwarf Online
$6T
Offline
$400B E-Commerce

12. Turn Your Business Listings into
Local Leads
Consumers are searching for businesses online more
often, in more places, and from more devices than ever
63%
use at least
two devices to
search
25.1B local searches annually
31.5%
search on
non-Google sites
54%
have substituted
YellowPages with
online search
72%
trust online reviews

13. How Local Data
Works

14. Turn Your Business Listings into
Local Leads
Imagine asking 10 people you trust where a particular
restaurant is
Agreed
Yup!
Perfect.
Exactly
Yes.
Spot on.
Confirmed
That’s it.
Same.
Goodfella’s
Pizzeria
144 Orchard St
(212)432-3200
Consistency results in high confidence for consumers and search crawlers

15. Turn Your Business Listings into
Local Leads
What if the answers were more confusing?
Inconsistency results in low confidence, which decreases search ranking and risks
lost business
Good Fella
Brick Oven
144 Archer St.
212.345.1122
Where?
You mean
Goodfella’s
LES?
Never heard
of it.
144 Orchard
Ave.
Great
movie.
I don’t think I
know them.
Goodfella’s
Pizzeria
144 Orchard St
(212)432-3200

16. Turn Your Business Listings into
Local Leads
+43
more
This is How Local Search Works
• Consistency: NAP data needs to be the same everywhere
• Authority: Information needs to come from sources your
customers – and search engines – trust
• Number: Large Quantities of consistent data matter

17. Turn Your Business Listings into
Local Leads
• Publishers pull new data from
sources like aggregators,
government records, and end
users every day/week/month
• When sources disagree,
duplicates and errors abound
• Worst of all, businesses
themselves are not in control
Local
Data
Data
Aggregators
Publishers &
Directories
Government
Records
User-
submitted
content
Crawled
Website
Data
How can a business possibly be sure every source
provides correct and complete information?
Every publisher compiles listings differently — often from
multiple sources

18. Turn Your Business Listings into
Local Leads
Yahoo! User Review
Google Places User
Customer Facebook
Post
Mobile Yelp User
Yahoo! Mobile User
Yelp App User Signal
Claimed Yahoo Listing
Regional Directory
Foursquare Check-in
Claimed Yelp Listing
Angie’s List Review
Twitter Post
Store Locator
DexKnows Page
News Article
Bing Local Listing
Government Filing
Tax State Forms
Bank Loan Data
Unstructured Forum
Phone Records
Trademark Application
Acxiom Database
Out of Biz Call Center
Lexis Nexis Directory
Infogroup Database
Patent Registration
Unique Biz ID Forms
Offshore Location Team
GigWalk Submit
Thomson Reuters
Nasdaq Filings
Twitter Post Phone Records
InfogroupYelp Crawl
The Local Data Ecosystem
?

19. Turn Your Business Listings into
Local Leads
• Before digital presence management technology,
the best solution was to provide correct data to
aggregators, who sold or submitted it to publishers
• But, submission does not guarantee control, and
publishers’ data preferences can and will change
• With so many sources in today’s ecosystem, it’s
impossible to fix any listings “at the source”
Aggregators can provide basic data to publishers, but
can’t guarantee control

20. Turn Your Business Listings into
Local Leads
Without control, anarchy ensues

21. Turn Your Business Listings into
Local Leads
One Result: Duplicate Listings
Yext scanned 2,719 locations to test for duplicates, and found:
40,607
total duplicate listings
14.93
in 24 of 25primary categories
average duplicates per
location

22. Turn Your Business Listings into
Local Leads
These duplicates distributed a significant
amount of incorrect data…
Total
Total wrong phone numbers: 26,372
Wrong phone number & name 11,416
Wrong phone number, name, address 906
Total wrong addresses: 10,343
Wrong address & name 3,013
Total wrong names: 17,360

23. Turn Your Business Listings into
Local Leads
…across categories
Agriculture &
Industry
0.33%
Arts &
Entertainment
0.70%
Automotive &
Vehicles
6.97%
Beauty & Spas
1.48%
Business Services
6.20%
Consumer
Electronics
0.47%
Contractors
21.19%
Family &
Community
2.25%
Financial Services
1.04%
Food & Dining
0.90%
Health & Medicine
20.17%
Home & Garden
6.95%
Insurance
1.97%
Legal Services
15.23%
Moving & Transport
1.04%
Real Estate
11.85%
Shopping
0.59%
Duplicates per Category
Categories Total
Agriculture & Industry 133
Arts & Entertainment 286
Automotive & Vehicles 2,830
Beauty & Spas 600
Business Services 2,516
Cabinet Refacing Specialists 6
Clothing 16
Computers & Software 43
Consumer Electronics 190
Contractors 8,606
Education 102
Family & Community 915
Financial Services 422
Food & Dining 365
Health & Medicine 8,192
Home & Garden 2,823
Insurance 799
Legal Services 6,184
Moving & Transport 421
Pets 31
Real Estate 4,812
Shopping 238
Sports & Recreation 26
Travel 51
Grand Total 40,607

24. Turn Your Business Listings into
Local Leads
How can you solve these issues?
By taking control

25. Advantage for
Partners

26. Turn Your Business Listings into
Local Leads
Yext provides complete control across the PowerListings
Network

27. Turn Your Business Listings into
Local Leads
With this control, Yext can be used as a true source of
record
Custom Template Upload
Bulk Edit

28. Turn Your Business Listings into
Local Leads
Powered listings increase engagement
Businesses can highlight
specials or offers with Yext’s
Featured Message.
With photos, videos, and a 50-character
freeform field, brands can highlight special
experiences, opportunities, and offers on
their listings.
Listings with photos see 248%
more clicks than those without.

29. Turn Your Business Listings into
Local Leads
Enhanced Content Makes Listings Informative and
Consistent
Businesses use Yext to
sync their Menus,
Products & Services, Staff
Bios, Events, and more.
Enhanced content
enables our partner sites
to provide valuable and
specific information to
consumers, straight from
businesses themselves.
Auto dealers update inventory
lists daily
Gyms sync and update their
complete class schedules
Restaurants highlight daily
specials and keep menus current

30. Turn Your Business Listings into
Local Leads
Yext offers complete control over 45 content fields
• Name
• Address 1 & 2
• Sublocality
• Display Address
• Address Visible
• City
• State
• Postal Code
• Country
• Main Phone
• Categories
• Latitude
• Longitude
• Closed Flag
• Special Offer*
• Special Offer URL*
• Business Hours
• Description
• Website
• Website Display URL
• Emails
• Payment Methods
• Logo
• Photos
• YouTube Video URLs
• Menu*
• Products*
• Events*
• Bios*
• Additional Hours Text
• Additional URLs
• Alternate Phone
• Mobile Phone
Bold = required fields * = Yext-specific fields
• Fax
• Toll-Free Number
• Twitter Handle
• Facebook Page
• Year Established
• Associations
• Specialties
• Brands
• Languages
• Keywords
• Attribution Logo/URL

31. Turn Your Business Listings into
Local Leads
Duplicate Suppression identifies & suppresses invalid
listings
Yext’s Duplicate Suppression feature
solves the problem of duplicates at the
individual publisher level.
Suppression Scan, Status, & Verification
Duplicate Redirects

32. Turn Your Business Listings into
Local Leads
Category Mapping maximizes search relevance on every
site
— With Yext, you can map your clients’ listings
to the relevant tags and search indexing that
each individual publisher uses.
— This enables the categories that best describe
each business to translate into optimal search
terms everywhere.

33. Turn Your Business Listings into
Local Leads
Better content drives better results
A business’s own website is
usually 3+ clicks away from
initial intent.
Maximize listings content to
grab consumers’ attention!

34. So what do you do today?
Step 1: Check your business listings:
www.surefiresocial.com/surescan
Step 2: Update your inconsistent listings

35. Thank You!
Tony Surak
Christian Ward

36. Turn Your Business Listings into
Local Leads

37. /SurefireSocial
@surefiresocial
Surefiresocial.com