Business listings and citation cleanup for east Hillsborough

The problem most owners do not know they have

Your business is probably listed in dozens of places you never signed up for. Map apps, data companies, review sites and old directories pull your information from wherever they can find it. If you moved, changed your phone number or changed your business name even once, some of those places still have the old version.

A customer in Brandon looks you up on Apple Maps, sees the address from three years ago and drives to the wrong place. Or they call a number that no longer works and call your competitor instead. Search engines see the mismatch too, and it makes them less sure about you.

This is the Directories move in Level 1: Found of our Become Locally Famous framework. It is one of the least exciting moves and one of the most important.

Google says local rankings come down to relevance, distance and prominence. Part of prominence is what the rest of the web says about you. When your name, address and phone line up across the places that list you, that picture is clear. When they do not, you are working against yourself.

It matters for AI search tools too. ChatGPT, Gemini and Google's AI features draw on public sources to describe local businesses. Clean listings give them one consistent answer. See AI search optimization for how that fits together.

Where we check and fix

• Google Business Profile. The listing that drives the map. We make it the source of truth everything else matches. See Google Business Profile management.
• Apple Maps. Every iPhone uses it by default. Many owners have never claimed their Apple listing.
• Bing. Smaller than Google, but it feeds other tools, and it is easy to get right.
• Yelp. Still shows up in searches, and still read by plenty of customers.
• Facebook. Your page's address, phone and hours should match your Google profile exactly.
• Chamber directories. Member listings for local chambers are trusted local sources. We make sure yours are current.
• The East of Tampa directory. Our own East of Tampa directory is free for businesses in east Hillsborough. One more accurate, local listing, and it is read by people who live here.
• Your website. The name, address and phone in your footer and on your contact page should match everything above. See website design.

How we do it

• Pick the one true version. We agree with you on exactly how your name, address and phone should be written. Suite number or not. "LLC" or not. Main line or tracking line. Small details, but they need to be the same everywhere.
• Find what is out there. We search for your business, your old addresses, your old phone numbers and the ways your name has been misspelled.
• Claim and correct. We claim listings you have never claimed, correct the wrong ones and request removal of duplicates.
• Add the ones that are missing. If you are not on a listing that matters for your kind of business, we add you.
• Keep a record. You get a list of where you are listed and how to log in, so the next change is easy.

Some fixes take effect the same day. Others depend on the platform and can take weeks to show. We tell you which is which, and we do not promise any platform's timing.

When this matters most

If you moved, rebranded, changed your phone number or bought an existing business, listings cleanup should be the first thing you do. It is also worth doing before any local SEO push or ad campaign. There is no point paying for attention that ends with a customer calling a dead number.

It matters a lot out here because so many businesses serve several towns. A contractor based in Valrico who works Brandon, Riverview and FishHawk might have one listing that says Valrico, one that says Brandon and one that still shows a home address from before the shop opened. A home-based business that does not want its address public needs that set up the same way on every listing too. We sort out which version is right for you and apply it everywhere.

What it costs

Listings cleanup is quoted per project after a call, and ongoing upkeep is quoted per month if you want it. We look at how much is out there first, then give you a number. You can see more of how we work on the case studies page.

We are local, in FishHawk, and veteran-owned. John Plumstead graduated from West Point in 2009 and retired from the Army as a major. Small, boring details are where a lot of businesses lose customers, and we like fixing them.

Talk to us

Search your business name on Google, then on Apple Maps, then on Bing. If any of them show an old address or phone number, call John at 813-495-2136 or take the free audit. While you are at it, add your business to our free directory.