Pitfalls of in-house digital location management

As industry-leading specialists at the forefront of digital location management, BPS have extensive knowledge of platforms such as Google My Business, Apple Maps, Uber, Waze, Yellow Pages, Here and TomTom. After 10 years of successfully managing numerous global brands' digital locations, we understand the expertise, human resource, tools, technology and time required to ensure 100% accuracy across the digital landscape.

If this decade of experience has taught us one thing, it’s that this critical task cannot be handled effectively internally. Here’s why:

1. Technology:

Over the last four years BPS have developed proprietary technology that allows effective management of multiple locations across multiple platforms from a central dashboard. This technology, known as Location Bank, handles location data at scale through a variety of direct API connections with publishers/end points. The tool also provides intelligence through location and ranking analytics and manages reviews across a multitude of platforms.

2. Knowledge gap:

Deep knowledge of digital location’s complexity and each platform’s intricacies is crucial. Thoroughly cleansing the locations before they even get near a third-party platform, relationships with Google, or licensing agreements with stricter corporations like Apple are just some areas often overlooked when brands attempt to manage their own digital location presence. Throw into the mix the little, if any, knowledge of the formats and procedures at the various publisher channels and you have a recipe for disaster and months upon months of wasted time.

3. Capacity:

BPS have calculated an average of 21 working hours per month for every 100 locations when the clean-up and listing implementation phase begins - this includes a keyword optimisation strategy (SEO) on Google. If we take the banking or quick-service restaurant industries as an example, with on average 500 locations per brand, brands are looking at 105 hours of work per month. A question that brands need to ask is: can they commit that resource to digital location management and optimisation? Keep in mind that these hours will probably be wasted (see point 2).

NB: These hours are calculated based on highly trained staff members with no learning curve.

4. Optimisation:

In addition to man-hour resources, SEO for Google My Business is where BPS bring one-of-a-kind expertise and know-how to ensure your listings are not just accurate but also get maximum exposure. It’s pointless to have a website that no one can find, it’s just as pointless to have an accurate listing that doesn’t appear within user search results.

BPS clients receive the best return on investment for their local listings and massive ranking visibility across critical keyword searches. Most brands, depending on their digital brand strength, initially achieve an 8-17% ranking visibility when run through our patented rank tracking software whilst our clients comfortably achieve five times this within the first six months of management by BPS.

To conclude, brands who work with BPS are employing a trusted expert advisor and partner to manage locations who doesn't just provide peace of mind that these critical touchpoints are taken care of but can prove marketing ROI. Brands also need to remember that doing location badly (or without the required skill) will negatively impact your rankings, slow your foot traffic, and eat away your revenue.

If you’re struggling to handle your brand's locations or have chosen to outsource this function to an agency which doesn’t specialise in location management and SEO, then get in touch today and let us change the game for you.