Voice-Readiness Study Indicates Vast Majority of Businesses Fail Basic Listings Test

Photo above by Yuriy Trubitsyn.

It only takes listing correct and comprehensive information on Google, Yelp, and Bing for a brand or small business to earn 90% on location management solution Uberall’s voice search readiness test. Yet only 4% of the businesses in Uberall’s latest study, which examined the voice preparedness of 75,000 listings, had correct info on all three of those major directories.

Other glaring errors include hours of operation, to which anyone who has Googled a local business only to find its doors locked and lights dim can attest. Nearly half of the listings examined in the study included erroneous or missing hours of operation.

As far as platform importance goes, Apple Maps pales in comparison to Google’s navigation product, which is among the most important directories for which voice-conscious businesses can optimize. Bing, while commanding a much smaller share of the overall search market than Google, remains an important platform for brands hoping to get in front of local customers, and yet it is also among the most neglected.