Managing hundreds or thousands of locations may sound like a daunting task for any enterprise brand. At Rio SEO, we are dedicated to making continual improvements and enhancements to our products that take the burden off our customers, simplifying their local marketing efforts when and where possible. Recently, we rolled out a number of new features and wanted to call attention to a few existing features in Local Manager.

In this post, we’ll highlight and dive into the new multi-edit functionality, listings management health tab, and discuss the benefits of using the Notes tab. Let’s get started by reviewing our latest advancements.

Bulk Change Management

Need to apply your business logo seamlessly across all your locations? Want to update a promotional banner on your Rio SEO-hosted locator pages? Specified users have the ability to make changes in bulk within the Local Manager platform to certain fields such as “From email”, “Fax number”, “Phone number” and more. This often-overlooked feature enables enterprise brands to quickly submit bulk changes at their own convenience. Brands also benefit from this feature because it:

• Eliminates friction when quick changes are needed
• Empowers your staff to own local marketing tasks
• Reduces errors by allowing you to view your changes prior to publishing
• Allows you to select the users you’d like to have access to this feature
• Lets you take greater ownership of your listings at the local level

The Multi-edit feature can be found in Local Manager under the “Locations” tab. Once inside the Locations tab, you will select which locations (either subset or all) you would like to edit in bulk, then select the “Multi-Edit” button, adjacent to “Export”. Thereafter, the interface will display all of the varying fields that may have bulk changes assigned. You will then click “Finish” to complete the changes. 

To see a visual representation of what multi-edit functionality would look like in your Local Manager dashboard, please see the example below:

Local Manager Dashboard Optimizations

Consuming content just became easier. Keep your documents centralized and easy to access within Local Manager with the “Notes” tab. The new Notes section in Local Manager allows you to effortlessly centralize your documents, PowerPoint presentations, Excel files, videos, and a number of other forms of content so that you’re never again left searching endless emails to find shared files. This tool is also helpful as it may serve as a content repository for remote employees or stakeholders to navigate to company bulletins or training materials. 

Oriented in a simplified, user-friendly design, those with access to this tab can:

• Embed your quarterly reports with your Account Director
• House internal documents for easier access for employees, such as training documents, surveys, and more
• Reduce desktop clutter
• Eliminate the need for paper copies
• Improve the organization of your documents

When enabled, Notes can be found in Local Manager under the “Notes” drop-down menu, as seen in the image below:

Additionally, trend graphics were recently improved in Local Manager’s MapPack Insights, making it easier to use and interpret data for both Views and Clicks in the Summary Screen. 

Listings Optimizations

To help enterprise brands better optimize their local listings, we have now set both a character length limit for description fields and image parameters, such as the appropriate aspect ratio and proper size requirements. These changes will both improve the user experience and ensure your listings follow listing directories’ guidelines. 

Prioritize Your Listings Health

As a marketing professional, you are well-versed in the importance of maintaining up-to-date listings and avoiding duplicate listings. Consumers expect accurate information about your location, from your address to your phone number, any time they visit your listing. In fact, 93% of consumer survey respondents agree with the statement, “Finding incorrect information in online directories frustrates me,” and nearly 80% stated that “Finding incorrect information in online directories would stop me from using a local business.” 

Knowledge of the health of your listings across all your locations is crucial to mitigate inaccuracies. The Listings Health tab in Local Manager enables end-users to see directory-specific information.

Currently, customers are able to login to Local Manager and see: 

• The date a listing was first created
• The date in which location data was last submitted
• The existing status of a location
• Directory URLs

Our goal is to ensure your listings are taking advantage of all available real estate on Google. Listings Health makes this possible by allowing you to see all published Google data, while also allowing you to take direct control, rounding out your listing when location classification gaps exist. To accomplish this, in the near future, we will expand this feature even further to show if your listings have:

• A primary category selected (Category that best describes the core business this location engages in)
• Additional categories selected (Choose additional categories that are as specific as possible, but representative of your main business)
• Attributes (Provide additional information about a location)
• Price lists (Menu information for this location)
• Published state (Reflects the state of a location)

By leveraging the Listings Health tool, your brand can better:

• Gain more control in Google Manager and see the last time information was submitted to Google and the date it was first created on Google
• Have a more holistic view of your presence on Google
• Easily manipulate data
• Maintain your brand’s integrity across the whole search ecosystem

Stay tuned as we will announce the ongoing expansion of our Listings Health feature once it is released in the future. 

Want to learn more about these updates? Reach out to your Account Director for guidance or, if you’re not yet using Local Manager, get in touch with our local search experts to schedule a quick demo and have a free local audit conducted to analyze your current local presence and identify opportunities for improvement.

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