If you were able to verify your company automatically, a fair amount of your company information should be in the system already. Regardless, you will want to fill out as much information as possible, and make sure it’s as accurate as it can be, down to the appropriate punctuation marks (“123 Main St. #456” is different than “123 Main Street, Suite 456”).
Let’s work down the page:
Images
Make sure you have Added Your Images to your Business Profile.
Location
Make sure your address is full and complete. This will help search engines associate this listing with your business and aide in search results. You can toggle Show Map and Hide Address. These are especially useful for remote or home-based businesses where you may not want that information easily accessible.
Contact
Make sure your Phone Number and Website are accurate (include the http:// or https:// in your URLs!). We are developing an internal booking engine, but for now if you use a booking software like Genbook, YouCanBookMe, Google Calendar, etc., you may put that URL here.
Company Contact Emails
Make sure your primary email goes in the first Primary Contact Email slot, as it will be used as the main contact email. Additional emails can be added. These addresses will be notified about activity on your WhirLocal profile, such as New Reviews, New Referrals, etc.
Company License Numbers
Some companies and industries are required by law to display License Numbers on marketing materials, such as Real Estate Agents, Landscape Contractors, etc. Be sure to add all of your required License Numbers here.
Legal Notice
Some companies and industries are required by law to display a Legal Notice on websites and profiles. If that’s the case, you may place that here.
About Your Company
Tell us (and your prospective customers!) about your company. This will display on your Business Profile. Now is your chance to add some personal flair and let your company’s culture and personality shine through. When did you set up shop, who is your ideal customer, how many customers have you helped?
SEO & Meta Content
By default, we try and make search engine friendly Title Tag and Meta Description. We include a preview of what it may look like on the search engines. Feel free to customize these to modify your search engine presence!
Products & Services / Service Areas
Add keyword-rich products & services to your profile by typing them into the box and clicking the “Add” button. It is best to think about what your potential customers are searching for when they are searching for your products or services. The products & services you add are displayed on your WhirLocal business profile and also on your WhirLocal review form, allowing reviewers to select the product or service they received from you. Benefits to adding keyword-rich search terms also include:
- Products & Services are searchable on WhirLocal Neighborhoods and Hubs
- Keywords can help contribute to getting found on a search engine
Service Areas are well-suited for businesses that serve customers at their locations. You can add as many Service Areas as you want. It is best to use actual city names (recommended), but you could also use regions if you’d like. Start with your primary location, and fill in the main cities around you that you work in.
Company Hours
Make sure your hours are set. If you’re closed, toggle closed on that day. Open 24 hours? Toggle it! Otherwise, set the Hour and Minute that you open and close. You may click the buttons below the hour fields to copy the times from day to day (or all days) to speed the process up if you have identical hours on certain days.
Social Media Accounts
We have curated some of the most important Social Media websites for companies to have. Put the appropriate URLs into each space if you have them (include the https://). Not every social media site is here, just the one’s we believe need to be promoted the most to benefit your online presence.
Review Sites
These are different than Social Media sites, and are sites where you can gather reviews (though some do overlap, such as Facebook). Choose the Account Name from the dropdown, and paste in the URL (include the https://). For overlapping sites (such as Facebook), you should paste a direct link to the Reviews page, if applicable. If you have a paid WhirLocal package, these sites will show up as options when somebody clicks the Write a Review button on your Business Profile.
Lead Capture Form
When you signed up, we created a basic Contact Form for you. This shows up in the sidebar of your profile. You can add a new form, edit this form, or just use it as is. Toggle the Preview Form checkbox to preview the form fields.
Payment Methods
Toggle on the payment methods that you accept in your day-to-day operations. These show up in various places across the system, and will later be integrated into our search metrics.
Mobile Redirect Script
While not really a “setting” to change, you have a beautiful new WhirLocal profile now (be sure to click Save Profile or Publish Profile after all the changes we’ve made!). If you don’t have a mobile friendly website, you can add this simple script to the <head> tag of your website, to redirect mobile visitors to your WhirLocal listing instead.
