Taking Over Local SEO

[Adamk]

We have taken over Local SEO for a company with about 2000 locations. It seems that most of the listings are inaccurate and claimed. The client does not know who claimed them and has no access.
Has anyone seen best practices to follow in this scenario?

Thanks

 

[Linda Buquet]

Oh dear... my advice? Charge them triple because this is going to be a lot of extra work to clear up.

But seriously the 1st thing I'd do is push them harder. Let them know that it's difficult to reclaim listings now and you need the log in. Press them for who could have created? Did they have another marketing company who did it? No one is going to do all the work to claim 2000 listings for no reason and for free and someone had to verify them.

If that does not work tell them if they can't get you log ins you will need to charge extra because it will be a lot of extra time and work. That threat usually gets you the log in within the hour.

If all else fails call support. But it's going to be a bear I predict to untangle this.

 

[Phil Rozek]

Linda nailed it. I'd also tell your clients it will take you weeks (or months) longer to get a given location visible if they can't or won't give you the logins.

 

[Andrew Scherer]

Take their core locations and fix those first, run an audit and find out where the mistakes are. You can get things fixed if you don't have the logins, it just requires a lot of e-mails and calls.

 

[Adamk]

It has been a challenge, so far. We have gotten Google to un-verify many of the listings, thus making us able to re-claim in the clients account. Has anyone else had this action happen?

 

[Ashwin]

Adam,

Is it just Google that you're worried about, or are there other listing sites too?