Local search sites can teach you many things. They give you so many options for your business to become relevant. You can let the customers understand your services with the nice SEO business descriptions, photos, consumer reviews and so forth—yes, there are many pretty rainbows to local search. Yet, every now and then a little annoyance comes along and steals the *local search* pot of gold at the end of the rainbow: Listing Verification.
Now, in the past I’ve written about how phone verification systems for local search sites are efficient at claiming your listing in a timely manner. That’s still true. The only minor detail pushed aside is the simplistic template for verifying your listing. In one corner, you have your complicated “Confirmation Letter” icon that mails your PIN number out to you—it’s just too bad you have to wait almost a week to two weeks for it. In the other, you have the straight and narrow icon to claim your listing over the phone—but, what do you do if a recording answers that line?
Okay, the first annoyance is very easy to fix: Speed up the mailing times! How come I can mail a birthday card to my friends halfway across the United States in less than three days, but some local search site’s letter will sometimes take nearly 10 times as long to reach a business? Think about it, that’s almost identical to the shipping times of a product you’d buy on T.V.
As for the latter issue, here’s my solution: Follow in the footsteps of Yelp. There are many businesses that have automated recordings running as their main line. That means more than likely you’ll have to enter an extension number to directly get to a specific person, which for some reason, only Yelp has figured out. Yelp’s verification system will effectively punch through the automated recording and end up right where it’s supposed to be: a human voice. The real head-scratcher is every local search directory is a high-tech force of nature for online marketing, yet they sometimes treat businesses as if their phone system hasn’t escaped the rotary dial age.
That being said, to all you other local search sites, please throw a helping bone to the business you help promote by polishing up your verification system.
