Getting Started Checklist
Frequently Asked Questions
What's Covered?
This guide offers tips and tricks to help you get started with Moz Local and set yourself up for success.
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Preparing to Purchase
When preparing to purchase a location in Moz Local, be sure to have the following information on hand to enter during the purchase process:
- Business Name
- Address Line 1
- Address Line 2 (optional)
- Country
- City
- State/Province
- Postal Code
- Phone Number
- Primary Category
For further information about the purchase process, be sure to check out our purchasing guide.
Moz Local Success Checklist
After completing your purchase of a Moz Local subscription, there are a few steps we recommend taking in order to set yourself up for success! We’ll outline those next steps below along with additional resources, should you need them.
Step 1: Make sure all of your profile data is complete in Moz Local
Along with your basic business information, like name, address, phone number and categories it’s important to include other important details such as: website, email, opening hours, keywords, description, logo, and photos.
The following fields, at minimum, must be filled out in order to ensure submission to all directories:
- Business Name
- Business Address
- Primary Phone
- Website
- Business Hours
- Primary Category
A complete profile looks more professional and helps your customers choose and connect with your business.
This step is particularly important if you have purchased your locations in bulk as you will need to manually enter this information after your purchase is complete to ensure submission to all directories included in your Moz Local subscription.
Please note: to ensure the highest acceptance rate of your location data, be sure to follow Google’s listing guidelines.
Step 2: Start sync and select syncing options
Auto-Sync is a feature of Moz Local which allows you to set your location(s) to automatically submit updates to our partners once changes are saved to your Profile. In most cases, auto-sync will be automatically enabled for new listings purchased; however you will need to check that step 1 of this checklist is completed in order to ensure submission to all directories.
If you have purchased more than 10 locations, they will not be automatically set up for auto-sync when first loaded into the new Moz Local platform. This is to allow you to fill out your location details as completely as possible before pushing this information to our data partners.
If you have more than one location managed through Moz you can start sync from the Location Dashboard.
1. Head to your Locations page
2. Use the check box to select the locations you'd like to sync
3. Click the START SYNC button in the upper right you can turn on auto-sync from the Locations Dashboard
From the Profile tab, you can choose to turn on auto-sync using the Auto-sync toggle button. This will ensure any updates are automatically pushed to our partner network.
Step 3: Connect and verify Google Business Profile (GBP)
Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) is a powerful tool for local businesses. To get the most out of both Google Business Profile and Moz Local it’s important to connect these two powerhouses together.
Be sure to read our guide for connecting Google Business Profile, first, to ensure you have everything in place prior to connecting to Google.
Please note: When connecting Google to your Moz Local account, the location information in your Moz Local profile will overwrite the information currently noted in your Google Business Profile.
When connecting to Google, all the profile information you add to Moz Local will be treated as the source of truth to distribute out to the local search partner ecosystem and connected social platforms. This means that once you create and connect GBP to Moz Local all your business location information will update to reflect what you have in Moz Local. This includes photos and additional information.
Before you connect Google Business Profile we strongly advise making sure you have uploaded all your images, and updated your Profile information in Moz Local.
Step 4: Establish and connect Facebook
You can connect Facebook to Moz Local in order to easily share and track customer content, monitor engagement and reviews (with certain plans).
Be sure to read our guide for connecting Facebook, first, to ensure you have everything in place prior to connecting to Facebook.
When connecting to Facebook, all the profile information you add to Moz Local will be treated as the source of truth to distribute out to the local search partner ecosystem and connected social platforms. This means that once you create and connect Facebook to Moz Local all your business location information will update to reflect what you have in Moz Local. This includes photos and additional information.
Before you connect Facebook we strongly advise making sure you have uploaded all your images, and updated your Profile information in Moz Local. You can also review our checklist for connecting Facebook to verify which fields Moz Local will update on your behalf after connecting.
Step 5: Improve your listings by sharing multimedia content, events and Q&As
If you haven’t already added images to your Profile during the process of connecting Google and Facebook, now’s the time to tackle that task! Within the Photos & Videos section of your location Profile you can add images, videos, and a logo.
With Moz Local Preferred and Elite level plans, you’ll also have access to the Publish feature of Moz Local. Here you can post events, Q&As, and bookings directly to your Google Business Profile page.
Multimedia content will help your business come up higher in search results. This is a great way to connect directly with your customers and improve local search rankings.
Step 6: Respond to your good, and bad, reviews
Reviews are an amazing opportunity to turn customers around. Responding to negative reviews, and addressing the issue, shows other potential customers how responsive your business is.
It is important to encourage happy customers to share their opinions, if you can. Responding to positive reviews shows existing and prospective customers that you care.
Within the Customer Feedback section of Moz Local you can monitor and respond to incoming reviews for your business locations.
Please note: Full review management and social posting features are available with our Preferred and Elite plans to ensure that you can interact with your customers through both review platforms and social channels.
Step 7: Share seasonal content, events and promotions on social media
With Moz Local Preferred and Elite level plans, you’ll have access to the Publish feature of Moz Local where you can create posts to share on social media platforms.
Adding fresh seasonal content is a powerful way to add personality to your online presence and keep current with what consumers are already thinking. Be sure to customize posts for holidays, seasons, upcoming events, and local topics or promotions. Moz Local also offers a template library to help you post more efficiently.
Please note: Full review management and social posting features are available with our Preferred and Elite plans to ensure that you can interact with your customers through both review platforms and social channels.
Step 8: Customize Google Business Profile pages to your neighborhood with Google Attributes
Seize the opportunity to customize your listings with the keywords and info that matters most to your local customers. Use Google’s Attributes feature to share details about your business that customers might be looking for. For example, if you are a restaurant, be sure to mention things like: ‘patio seating’, ‘takeout’ or ‘wifi’. If you are a shop, include your specialties.
You can add Attributes to your Moz Local profile within the Rich Data section. The options available are based on your primary category and are pulled directly from Google.
Step 9: Optimize for voice and mobile search
Make sure you’re choosing natural, conversational language and using Google Attributes and keywords in listings, so that you pop to the top of mobile and voice search results.
Step 10: Track customer sentiment and your own performance
As hard as bad reviews are to hear, they are also a gift. They can tell you a lot about where to improve your business or services. Use your Moz Local to track your customer service and highlight new opportunities for growth, especially our Reviews Analysis feature, which highlights the 100 most mentioned words in your reviews.
Please note: Full review management and social posting features are available with our Preferred and Elite plans to ensure that you can interact with your customers through both review platforms and social channels.
Step 11: Download your free copy of the Moz Local User's Manual
In the spirit of making things as delightfully simple for every customer, we’ve published a guide to smooth sailing in unfamiliar waters. In this short and sweet Moz Local User Manual, you’ll find:
- A full visual key to the dashboard and all its functions
- Instructions for adding locations
- Instructions for editing locations
- Instructions for cancelling locations
- Instructions for managing reviews and social engagement
- And other actionable info!
What Happens Next?
Once you purchase and sync your location all the profile information you add to Moz Local will be treated as the source of truth to distribute out to the local search partner ecosystem and connected social platforms, like Facebook and Google Business Profile.
You can expect to see your location information synchronize across partner directories and connected platforms within a few minutes to a few weeks, depending on the directory. If your location information requires data cleansing this can take up to 6 weeks to complete.
Looking to learn more about local SEO?
Moz offers a wide variety of training courses via Moz Academy! The catalog includes courses touching on various SEO topics, from basic knowledge to Local SEO Fundamentals and Local SEO Tactics to support your business. You can view the course catalog and get started here.
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