How to add a listing to MiamiLakes.City

January 2, 2017 Knowledge Base

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Hi, this is JC with Vertical Marketing. As one of the creators of this business directory, I think it is important for you to understand that the main objective of this project is for you (the listing company) to experience success from having your business listed at MiamiLakes.City. While we will be focusing on ranking the website, there is a lot that you can do to have your individual profile rank on Google on its own. Furthermore, these profiles are meant to bring added visibility and traffic to your website and social media pages.

We have taken cues from all the key directories and social media sites to make the registration process as simple as possible; however, there are a couple of areas where we would like you to pay particular attention. By following our instructions, you will end up with a profile that is way superior to anything found on Yelp, The Yellow Pages, My Locally and even Merchant Circle!

Here’s the information you are going to need to complete your profile:

Title – This refers to your “Business Name”; the company name you are commonly known by, not necessarily your corporate identity.

Description – This field requires a minimum of 150 words; it is the most important part of your profile. It is always a good idea to create a draft in a word editor such as Microsoft Word before inputting the information on your profile. If you misspell as much as I do, consider having someone spell check your listing before posting it!

We suggest you start by thinking of a keyword or phrase that best describes the services or products you offer. You then need to incorporate that keyword or phrase into your description and link it back to your website. Some of the most valuable information this section should include is as follows:

• Services offered and specialties.
• What makes you unique and different from other businesses who offer the same service.
• The geographical area you service.
• Years of business and experience.
• Landmark and references if you are in a location without street frontage.

Here is the fictitious example of what your description should look and sound like:

Welcome to MiamiLakes.City, we are an online business directory for the town of Miami Lakes, Florida. Although we are a relatively new website our team and founders, have over 75 years of combined experience in the marketing and advertising industry. We offer businesses the opportunity to list their business in one of the most up-to-date online directories around. MiamiLakes.City was designed employing the latest technologies and search engine optimization practices. Aside from an SSL secure environment we also offer schema, EXIF microdata, responsive layout, and Google AMP compliance. For a small fee of around five cents a day, we will market your business on Google, Facebook, and Twitter. In the near future, we will implement advertising opportunities allowing businesses in our area to advertise within different areas of our directory. We look forward to having you as a member and hope to bring you much success by being a part of the best online business directory for the town of Miami Lakes. Our objective is simply to bring added visibility and growth to our local business community.

As you can see in the first sentence the phrase ” online business directory for the town of Miami Lakes ” is linked to our homepage. We suggest you do the same. If you don’t have a website, consider using your most visible digital asset or social media page.

Also, you are going to need the following data – Phone Number, Website Address, Facebook Address, Twitter Address, Instagram Address, Google+, and last but not least a Category.

We are allowing up to 2 categories per listing. A lot of time and effort went into creating a framework that would work for just about everyone; at the same time, we did not want categories with one listing that never get visited. As we grow, I am sure this would have to be amended, but we are pretty confident about our starting point.

Image – They say a picture is worth a thousand words. A bunch of pictures/images not so much. It is our experience in marketing and advertising that profiles with many images convert at a slower rate than those with a single good image. For this reason, we have opted for a single full-width image platform.

Here are some tips about your image.

Google is paying a crazy amount of attention to loading speed. Having an image that is over 1000 pixel wide, is not recommended. The profile window is only 900 pixels wide, and regardless of the size image you load, it is still going to show with a maximum width of 900 pixels. Images over the maximum width slow down the loading speed of your profile by up to 40%. 4G, DSL, and even cable connections are fixed speed; if it takes 1 second to download an image that is one megabyte in size, it will take 4 sec. to download one that is four megabytes in size.

We not only encourage you to size your images properly but also label or name them correctly. Google has no idea what an image called image1.jpg means! The best practice is to label or name your image the same of your business with no blank spaces (use hyphens). For example, Miami-Lakes-Directory.jpg

As far as image sizing; if you don’t have access to Photoshop or any other image-editing software we would like you to consider using http://www.picresize.com; it is a straightforward and easy to use online picture editing tool. Also, save your images as JPEG. The directory software can’t attach EXIF or Schema data to PNG, GIF and other types of images (even though the system will accept them).

Please note that all Window Machines have Microsoft Paint pre-installed from the factory! Simply type paint at the start or search bar; this is another picture editing tool option.

The ideal image size for the directory listing is 900 pixels wide by 375 pixels height. This size image allow for the entire picture to show when the profile is shared on Facebook and other social media sites without any cropping! TIP: If you are experiencing cropping on your Facebook post, consider resizing your images with the tools mentioned above.

What should your image be about?

We have seen an excellent response to pictures of staff, showroom, and lobbies. If you don’t have one, use a smartphone with a camera. Here are several free images websites which you can download images from; https://www.pexels.com | https://pixabay.com | https://stocksnap.io, please stick to images that are relevant to what you have to offer! If you do have image editing capabilities, we suggest branding your image by overlaying your logo on top. If the logo has a similar contrast or color profile as the logo, it is always a good idea to frame it (meaning, to put a small box behind it so that it stands out)!

MAP Address – using the Google Map API, we would like to show a visitor where you are located. Please enter your full address in the space provided at the top of the MAP in this format: Address, Suite (if applicable), Miami Lakes, Florida, ZIP.

After you have completed all the data entry and pressed submit. You will be redirected to your profile page. This is pretty much the way your profile will look in public view. At the top, you will find three large buttons. Delete | Edit Listing | Pay!

If you have yet to pay for your listing, you need to do so before your listing goes live. Click PAY and a window will pop up. If you have a coupon code, click apply discount, enter your code and proceed by clicking pay. You can manage your profile at any time by returning to https://miamilakes.city/my-account/ and click on clicking on my listing.

Now that you have successfully published your profile, click on the social media share buttons and let others know about your new business profile at MiamiLakes.City and it is always a good idea to encourage loyal customers to add reviews and comments on your profile.

From all of us, may this initiative bring you much success!