Vice President of Franchise Marketing Dasch Schenberger has a background in history, but that didn’t stop him from becoming an expert in building successful digital marketing campaigns. In his role, he acts as a communicator, strategist, and analyst while interfacing with franchises and employees to make sure targets are hit and revenue goals are met.

“The best way to think about the online local ecosystem is all of the major platforms and channels you need to be listed on to be found by search engines.”

Dasch says that while your website is important, it’s not the only way Google connects searchers with your business. From Google My Business to Yelp to Angie’s List, these third-party directories verify how credible you are, building trust with Google and your customers when they conduct a local search.

Make sure your business has consistent information on every platform for each of these points:

This includes making sure that your data is maintained correctly and that platforms aren’t giving misinformation on your business.

Data aggregators are directories like Google My Business and Yelp and they act as phone books and data hubs that house the records for businesses. Verification of information and having physical addresses have become increasingly important as local searches like “plumbing near me” become the norm.

Google does not rank businesses that operate from a home or a virtual office, only have a P.O. box, or share a location with a business in the same industry. Your business must have a legitimate business address in order to rank. While this can be challenging, it is part of Google’s effort to provide better results and is an important detail to take into consideration when building your business.

It’s important to indicate where you are physically located and list areas that you are familiar with and serve within a certain radius, or specific towns. By including these details on your directories and site, you give Google the information it needs.

If you have multiple physical locations, consistency across all platforms is important.

“If I’ve got 3 locations, A, B, and C, I’ve got three records on all platforms of A, B, and C, and none of the information on A, B, or C is the same except for the name.”

Dasch also emphasizes that it’s best to have one website that has all of the information about each of your locations rather than separate sites for each location.

Point being: stay simple and consistent to perform the best in search results.