So what is this Foundational Footprint?
This is the footprint that the major search engines see when they crawl the internet for any reference to your business based on your address and phone number.
If you are a "local" business owner that is seeking to increase your business by attracting clients from your local community then it in imperative that you can be found when they search for your services on any of the major business directories.
You need to be seen by these search engines as a local service provider and you do this by including your contact details on any reference to you that may be found by these search engines.
Here is where it gets tricky.... all of these references to your business (contact details) MUST be exactly the same, otherwise the search engines will index your business as multiple identities, which will have a negative impact on the rating and hence the placement they apply.
So then the 1st thing you need to do is check what listings the search engines currently see when they attempt to index your website / business by searching for references to you on other websites, in particular the major business directories like Yellow Pages, True Local, Yelp etc.
You can get a quick analysis of this by entering your business phone number and country code at http://nittygritty.localreputationreport.com/
Once you check these entries then you need to update them so that they all reflect you contact details in exactly the same fashion.
For example if you phone number is listed as (03) 8899 7575 then this needs to be the same for all entries and not 03 8899 7575, get the idea?
Likewise your street address must also be exactly the same for all entries, i.e. if you abbreviate Street to St. then you need to do this for ALL entries, including the full stop.
The easies way to achieve this is to have your contact details saved in a text file which will then allow you to cut & past those details whenever you create a new entry in any on-line directory. That way you can be confident that the search engines have a better chance of indexing your business correctly and you are getting maximum benefit from your online listings.
If you would like any additional information the creating or correcting your Foundational Footprint, then just email me at fred@fredgillen.com