Your goal is to drive online traffic that leads your customer to your website and whether you are a tourism or trades business, these tips to update your business listing on third-party websites like Google Business Profile, Trip Advisor, and Australian Tourism Data Warehouse (ATDW) will help you get there. In this article, we show you simple tips on how to add your business listing to third party websites and directories using third-party distribution tools like Google Business Profile, Tripadvisor and ATDW. Each tool with its unique proposition and functionality is a great marketing tool to help drive extra customer traffic through to your website. They cost nothing to set up, they attract your ideal customer, are professional and are an ideal way to promote your business worldwide with other local businesses in your industry. In this article, we explain everything you need to know about third-party listings, review best practices and discuss how easy it is to set up and maintain your own directly from the platforms.
Google Business Profile Business Listing
>Make your Business Profile awesome. A Google business profile is a great way to attract and engage customers. Think of it as your business’s social media profile on Google. This allows you to connect with your current and future customers in an engaging, visual way. When you make create and maintain your business profile on Google, you make it easier for people to find out about your business, what products you offer, how to contact you and a reliable platform to leave reviews. Four Quick Ways To Maintain Your Google Business Profile
1. Share photos
Your website is a great place to showcase photos that capture what your business does best. Photos of your products, events and employees can all reinforce your business image for local customers. And with a Google image search, customers can find close-up photos of your products or a view of the inside of your offices, follow links to your site and purchase. There are several types of photos you can add to your Business Profile:
- Logo: A logo isn’t going to mean much to searchers if they can’t identify your business or understand the hours or address of your business. The same thing goes for Google. If you’re on the first page of Google, what searchers see by default is your Business Profile picture, name, and location. This information should be accurate so you can help customers find you in real life and on Search.
- Cover photo: Catering to specific industries makes it easier for prospective buyers to identify your brand as the industry expert. Although you may offer services and products to all businesses in the area, setting a single profile picture along with a dedicated summary that speaks directly to your target market will help your Google Business Profile rise above the competition.
- Business photos: Adding different photos to highlight features of your business is a great way to catch your customers’ attention and help them get the information they need about your services. It’s also an invaluable asset for building trust by showing off your work and creating a personal bond with your clients. Learn more about business photos.
Please note: Photos should be at least 720 pixels wide by 720 pixels tall, and either a JPG or PNG. Learn more about photos. Your Turn: Add photos to your profile
2. Reply to customer reviews
Your Business Profile allows customers to post reviews of your business. Online reviews are a great way to take valuable word-of-mouth marketing to the web and can help new people find you online. When you respond to customer reviews, you show your audience that you value the time they took to share their experience with your business. The more reviews you have, the more likely a potential customer is to take a second look at your business. Your Turn: Reply to reviews
3. See Insights
Want to find out how effective your profile is? With Insights, it’s easy to track how your profile performs. Your Turn:Access Insights Now that you’ve accessed Insights, what do you want to learn? Choose from the examples below: How many times have people seen my business information? How many times have people requested driving directions to my location? How do customers find my profile? Learn more about Insights
- Expand your presence with online ads
- Ever heard of Google ads? Smart campaigns in Google Ads are an easy way to start running online ads.
- Whether you’re a new online business or an experienced advertiser, you’ve likely wondered what this
- mysterious ad product could do for your business—and at what cost. Although people often shy from ads
- (cough, cough), Google Ads can be a vital part of growing a business online. It’s easy to set up, fully
- customisable, and you can promote your business to potential customers in seconds!
4. Update your business information
When your business information changes, you can update your Business Profile. Using your phone, tablet, and laptop or computer, you can update the name, address and phone number of your business within your Search Console. Regular updates help you ensure you can always share the most accurate information with your potential customers. The types of information you can update
- Business hours
- Physical address
- If you change your address, you need to complete the verification process again to confirm the new address.
- Phone number
- Category
- Explain what kind of business you run.
- Website
Tip: You can also add new Business Profiles for multiple businesses.Edit your information
- Log in to the account you use to manage your Business Profile.
- If you have multiple profiles, choose the one you want to manage.
- From the menu, click Info.
- Click the section you want to change, then enter the new information.
- It may take up to 60 days to delete the information you previously added. Information that is also publicly available or from other sources might not be removed.
- Business descriptions, like summaries or keywords from the web that appear next to your business, aren’t editable. Learn more about business summaries.
- Click Done editing.
Learn more about how to edit your business information Tip: To make changes on the go, you can use the Google My Business app for Android or iOS.
Tripadvisor Business Listing
Getting a Triadvisor listing is a no-brainer for most businesses. The site draws in over 730 million reviews and opinions and an average of 490 million monthly unique visitors (as of December 2010). With that kind of exposure, it’s definitely worth getting listed if you are not already. But where do you start? Here’s a quick start guide to getting your business listed on the world’s largest travel site directly from Tripadvisor where you will find everything you need to know on how to manage your business listing. Tripadvisor Listing Features Anyone can request a new listing for an Accommodation, Thing to Do, or Restaurant — and it’s free! A Listing is a place or business’s page on Tripadvisor. It contains the locations:
The listing page may also have content that the business provides, such as Management Photos and Management Responses to traveller reviews.
Business owners or official representatives can request listings for Vacation Rentals and Things to Do. Things to Do listings can also offer bookable products and services such as a tour, activity, attraction ticket, or any other in-destination experience sold on the Tripadvisor network.
If you are an owner/manager trying to claim your business’s listing on Tripadvisor, learn how here.
Updating your business details on Trip Advisor
As an owner or business representative, you can request updates to your business information in the Management Center.
To request updates:
- Log in to the Management Center
- Hover over the Manage Listing tab or any other heading in the top navigation bar. From here, you can request edits such as:
All requests are carefully screened to make sure they benefit travellers and comply with our policies so they may take up to 5 business days to be processed.
If you are an accommodation owner and you would like to update your contact details or add exclusive features to your listing, you can join Tripadvisor’s Business Advantage program.
If you own a Vacation Rental property, sign in to manage your listing and visit Tripadvisor’s Rental Insights page for helpful information.
For suggestions and best practices to improve your Tripadvisor listing, see Tips on updating your business details.
Your Turn:
Visit Trip Advisor: Have you claimed your listing?
Upload new photos to your listing
Respond to all reviews
Repurpose and share your five-star reviews on other platforms
ATDW (Australian Tourism Data Warehouse)
Business Listing
Firstly, if you are not in the Australian tourism space you may be asking what is ATDW and why would I want to list my business here?
The Australian Tourism Data Warehouse (ATDW) provides Tourism Operators with a cost-effective marketing solution to increase their digital marketing efforts and online exposure. The listing will be made available to all ATDW distributors with the option to select content listings that align with their corporate, sales and marketing strategies.
Most recently ATDW also partnered with Google and we wrote all about it here – Connecting your Australian Tourism Data Warehouse (ATDW) listing to your Google My Business
In this section, we will summarise and share information found directly from the ATDW Optimising Your ATDW Listing free online tutorial.
A Step-by-Step Guide Towards An ATDW Listing
The first thing you’ll need to do is to find out whether or not your business is already listed on the ATDW. It’s possible that either your State or Territory Tourism Organisation or someone else in your business may have previously registered and entered a listing. It’s good to check that you’re not duplicating their effort. You can look up ATDW products here.
We recommend that before you start, you carefully consider this:
A professional, well-written description, great photos and video are the most important components of your ATDW listing. Even if these are the only areas that you focus on, success can still be yours!
Your Turn: Create an ATDW listing folder where you can save all your profile information that will keep your listing updated.
How to Write an Effective Product Description That Attracts Customers Like a Magnet
The things potential customers look at, and can determine whether they click the ‘buy now’ button or simply move on to the next product. A carefully crafted product description can not only persuade consumers that your product is right for them, but also provide a useful resource for them after their purchase.
Product descriptions are essential if you want to encourage customers to buy from you. They’re what buyers read before they purchase from you, so it’s vital you make sure your product descriptions are excellent. Below are nine tips to help you create the best possible description for your products so that your description engages the consumer, captivates them and makes them want to experience your product and ultimately book!
- differentiate between features and benefits
- Focus more benefits ‘what’s in it for them’ in your listing
- include your unique selling proposition in your description
- have your most important information in the first one or two sentences of your listing
- short sentences are better for online promotion
- write within the maximum word limit
- information not to include in your description
- show your potential customers that you’re offering an authentic experience
- Be clear and accurate about currency, particularly if you attract overseas visitors
Your turn: If you haven’t done it already, write up your benefits. Knowing and promoting your benefits will help you attract more customers. Once you’ve identified your benefits, ask yourself which ones are unique to your business. That special difference is your Unique Selling Proposition (USP). It’s important to include your USP at the beginning of your listing so potential customers can immediately differentiate you from your competitors. If you’re still not sure about your USP, get some inspiration by asking a contented guest or looking at your positive reviews on Tripadvisor (www.tripadvisor.com.au).
How To Make Your Listing Stand out with Photos
A picture says a thousand words. Photos are an effective way to add more detail to your listing.
Human beings are visual creatures. Photos enable us to dream. We imagine ourselves in the photo or video; seeing ourselves taking that break or having that experience. Photos should ideally include people so your audience can relate. They don’t need to be staged, it’s more important that they’re authentic.
The ATDW-Online system will indicate if your photos do not meet the minimum requirements and ask you to replace these. A convenient photo uploading tool is available to help crop your images to the correct dimensions. See this video for a demonstration: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tbj3NcVY6vA&feature=youtu.be )
Why Video is Important for Your ATDW Listing
Now that you’ve created a compelling description and photos, you’re already in a position to attract more customers. The third step to success is a video. Video is a triple threat: people can hear what’s going on, see body language and view experiences all at the same time. Video is one of the most popular content items on the web.
You don’t need lots of resources to create an authentic video that will provide your customers with more information and add value to your listing. Even if you don’t have a video on your own website yet, it’s easy to get one onto your ATDW listing via either your Vimeo or Youtube channels.
A current smartphone makes it easy to shoot video. You can upload a video from your phone to a YouTube channel. Once your video is on your YouTube channel, you can add the link to your ATDW listing. You can also embed the video into your own website.
You could record any or all of the following:
- guests enjoying your experience
- local scenery or views from your property
- the ambience of the restaurant
- the highlight of the tour or a testimonial from a happy guest
Tips for Great Video Production:
- keep the video length to 120 seconds, otherwise, people will lose interest
- aim to focus one-third of the video on your offering and two-thirds on the other reasons to visit your region, including food – people want good food when they’re away from home!
- check the YouTube help pages to find out information relating to file length etc.
- before you commence creating your video ensure that the background environment is free from background noise
- have a camera or phone close to the participant to ensure good sound quality
- feature people using your product in the video
- keep the product as large as possible on the screen
- don’t rush panning shots
- get an objective view of your video before you put it on YouTube
- if your video is too long or not of great quality, we’d recommend you use a video professional to help with editing don’t add captions or subtitles as these may not be allowed by all video hosts
The must-know relationship between your ATDW listing, Tourism Australia, State or Territory and their campaigns
Tourism Australia and your State Tourism Organisation regularly run major campaigns to attract more visitors. For updates on how to get involved, you’re encouraged to subscribe to Tourism Australia’s weekly Essentials.
In summary, here are the steps to achieve an effective ATDW listing that showcases your business and can maximise your opportunities:
1. Check that you’re listed on the ATDW database by visiting your State or Territory Tourism Organisation’s consumer website or searching ATDW’s database here – http://atdw.com.au/our-listings/
2. Contact your State or Territory Tourism Organisation if you can’t find a listing. See here for details.
3. Write an engaging business description that highlights the benefits and can be quickly read because it uses short sentences
4. Collect compelling photos and video footage for your listing
5. Set a review period to regularly review your description and photos, and schedule these reviews in your diary
6. If something changes in your business, change your listing
7. Remember to “cross-promote” other businesses in your region and/or major campaigns in your copy
8. STOs reserve the right to reject changes that you have made in your ATDW listing. Ask for an explanation and advice on how to improve your listing And our final tip … keep everything related to your ATDW listing in one place and note down your username and password. Good luck! Remember, your State or Territory Tourism Organisation is there to help!
Let’s recap and take action:
In summary, audit your own third-party platforms. Are you visible on the platforms we have listed in this article? And if yes, when was the last time you updated your information, descriptions, images and videos. Take the time to schedule these important updates and then take a step further to add in your calendar to do it again in 3-6 months from now. To sign up for more inspiration on how you can reboot your tourism business visit, Join the 30 Day Tourism Business Reboot
