Joined
·
6,694 Posts
Well, not my website, but my local listing has vanished.
BTW, grab a beverage now, this might run long. This post will end up as 2 questions. A little background:
Back in 2002, I had my first website built. It was pretty crappy. Around the same time, I was putting a small box ad in the yellow pages under Wallcovering Installations. My business name is Professional Wallpaper & Paint Co. The YP sales person talked me into listing my biz as Bodine's Professional Wallpaper to get a listing closer to the top. It worked and I got enough leads out of it to pay for itself and then some.
Over time, my website became outdated. I never updated it at all because I never really liked it. I never used it as a source for leads, it was more of an online sales portfolio. I slowly let it die, and let the name/hosting expire. During that time, my business name and website was slowly populated on the various business directories on the web. At any given time, you could search for various terms for my area (paperhanger, wallpaper contractor, painter, etc) and my name/website would always pop up in the top 3 local listings on google.
Fast forward to Oct. 2009. I have a new website built, and it goes live a couple weeks ago. When this one was being built, I (being a little bit more internet savvy than before) concentrated on having good keywords/seo stuff included. I am more interested in it bringing in fresh leads than being a portfolio this time. So late last week, I'm doing some searches to see if my website pops up in the google organic searches yet. Nada. BUT, I see my local listing is still there. But it unfortunately still has my old address, phone number, and dead website.
A thread pops up on here (posted by another web/sales/marketing guru) which explains how to "claim your listing" on google maps. Very cool, I was just trying to figure out how to do that. I claimed my listing, and updated it. I changed my business name to Professional Wallpaper & Paint, from Bodine's Professional Wallpaper. I also changed my address, phone number, website, and added a short bio/description of the company. The next day POOF it is gone. No where to be found. Even when I click on "more local results" I'm not on the list anywhere.
Question 1: Why did my listing disappear? I assume its because I changed all the key parts of the listing? If so, how long should it take until it resurfaces? Is there anything I can do to make it come back to where it was sooner? I was really hoping to have my site and listing ranking pretty good before the dead of winter hit, now I'm scared that I won't be found again until spring hits. YIKES!
Same time I was trying to figure out how to change my listing, I found my biz name on a whole buttload of these internet business directories. ALL of them have my old address/phone number/website, and my biz name is listed as Bodine's Professional Wallpaper.
Question 2: Should I go now and claim and correct them? If someone searches my name (Bodine) I'm all over the net with them. But I assume if they already know my name, they can find me elsewhere. Plus, I haven't received a lead from any of these as far as I know. So should I just go out there and change them all? Maybe the sooner the better? Maybe google is getting mixed info from all the existing listing compared to the one updated listing?
Sorry this went on for so long, but if anyone has some input on this subject it would be appreciated.
BTW, grab a beverage now, this might run long. This post will end up as 2 questions. A little background:
Back in 2002, I had my first website built. It was pretty crappy. Around the same time, I was putting a small box ad in the yellow pages under Wallcovering Installations. My business name is Professional Wallpaper & Paint Co. The YP sales person talked me into listing my biz as Bodine's Professional Wallpaper to get a listing closer to the top. It worked and I got enough leads out of it to pay for itself and then some.
Over time, my website became outdated. I never updated it at all because I never really liked it. I never used it as a source for leads, it was more of an online sales portfolio. I slowly let it die, and let the name/hosting expire. During that time, my business name and website was slowly populated on the various business directories on the web. At any given time, you could search for various terms for my area (paperhanger, wallpaper contractor, painter, etc) and my name/website would always pop up in the top 3 local listings on google.
Fast forward to Oct. 2009. I have a new website built, and it goes live a couple weeks ago. When this one was being built, I (being a little bit more internet savvy than before) concentrated on having good keywords/seo stuff included. I am more interested in it bringing in fresh leads than being a portfolio this time. So late last week, I'm doing some searches to see if my website pops up in the google organic searches yet. Nada. BUT, I see my local listing is still there. But it unfortunately still has my old address, phone number, and dead website.
A thread pops up on here (posted by another web/sales/marketing guru) which explains how to "claim your listing" on google maps. Very cool, I was just trying to figure out how to do that. I claimed my listing, and updated it. I changed my business name to Professional Wallpaper & Paint, from Bodine's Professional Wallpaper. I also changed my address, phone number, website, and added a short bio/description of the company. The next day POOF it is gone. No where to be found. Even when I click on "more local results" I'm not on the list anywhere.
Question 1: Why did my listing disappear? I assume its because I changed all the key parts of the listing? If so, how long should it take until it resurfaces? Is there anything I can do to make it come back to where it was sooner? I was really hoping to have my site and listing ranking pretty good before the dead of winter hit, now I'm scared that I won't be found again until spring hits. YIKES!
Same time I was trying to figure out how to change my listing, I found my biz name on a whole buttload of these internet business directories. ALL of them have my old address/phone number/website, and my biz name is listed as Bodine's Professional Wallpaper.
Question 2: Should I go now and claim and correct them? If someone searches my name (Bodine) I'm all over the net with them. But I assume if they already know my name, they can find me elsewhere. Plus, I haven't received a lead from any of these as far as I know. So should I just go out there and change them all? Maybe the sooner the better? Maybe google is getting mixed info from all the existing listing compared to the one updated listing?
Sorry this went on for so long, but if anyone has some input on this subject it would be appreciated.
