In spite of the fact that everyone had some laughs over the baffling and sometimes hilarious gaffes of Apple Maps awhile back, millions of Apple device owners actually rely on Apple Maps every day to find places they want to visit. The melting streets, vanishing major cities, and just-plain-wrong location data has been disappearing—in their place, an SEO-driven map app that many people use to find products and services while they are out and about. Clearly, with millions of potential customers out there, focusing on SEO for Apple Maps is a critical business move.
Apple Map Optimization
At Affordable Web Design, Apple Map optimization is a central part of what we do for our clients when we design their mobile websites. Apple Map SEO success requires several steps so that an Apple device user will see your business when they are searching for it:
Accurate, Non-Duplicated Listings
We are watching where Apple Maps looks for its information. Currently, there are several business directory sites they pull data from, including Neustar Localeze, Acxiom, Factual and, of course, Yelp. One of the important things we do when helping a customer with Apple Map SEO is ensuring that all of their listings are accurate and the same across the board. If there are duplicate or incorrect listings because your business moved across town or changed phone numbers, we remove the incorrect data. This goes a long way to making sure your customers show up at the correct location when looking for your amazing widgets.
Claiming Your Yelp Listing
Many businesses have a love/hate relationship with Yelp, but you cannot avoid it. Apple Maps grabs a lot of its information from Yelp, good and bad. Make sure to stake your claim on your own Yelp listing. If there are “fake” or duplicate Yelp listings for your business, it takes constant work to make sure they are removed and removed again if they continue to pop up. Dealing with Yelp is a lot like weeding a garden; you have to keep doing it all the time. This is one of the ways we can help you manage your reputation online while helping you with your Apple Map optimization. As for managing your reputation when negative reviews hit (some of which are “plants” by the competition and not real reviews), it’s best to take the high road: don’t retaliate or resort to snippy and snide remarks. Practice good customer service techniques to resolve issues and encourage your happy customers to post reviews of their experiences.
Correcting Apple Maps
Another important aspect of getting the most out of your Apple Maps SEO is checking that your business is correctly categorized and listed with Apple Maps itself. This is another thing we check on, and fortunately, the newest version of Apple Maps gives you an option to “Report a Problem” if you find one; specifically, the “Location is missing” option. If your business does not show up at all, it is important to register this directly with Apple Maps so that your location will show up in future iterations of the app.
SEO for Apple Maps is becoming increasingly important, but it is a complicated task if you are already worried about running your business. We can handle this for you and help get your business on the map so many of your potential customers are using.