Each of our listings goes through a ‘human review’ to ensure both localness and that appropriate categories are selected, consistent with the listings’s description. For many common types of businesses and organizations we have created category templates to speed the listing process, and reduce category selection errors, or missed category opportunities. The Category Templates pop-down list is found at the bottom of the PROFILE page for adding a new listing.

In November 2008, FoundLocally added a number of Category templates to speed & simplify the process for many typical businesses. We noticed that certain types of businesses had difficulty finding & choosing the categories most appropriate to them, which is not surprising considering we have about 5,000 total categories a business can choose from. They either chose inappropriate categories, wrote in “Other” options that were already offered in the existing category options, or did not enter any categories (ie, “gave up”).

Each of these required personal effort as part of our “human review” process to manually select the appropriate categories so businesses and organizations get optimal benefit from their free listings. This affects our economics as the number of new business listings continue to grow.

We create a number of pre-selected Category “templates” for a number of commonly-added businesses, which can be selected at the bottom of the PROFILE page

(list udpated May 2010)

• Accountant (CA, CGA,CMA…)
• Ad Agency*
• Art Gallery*
• Car Dealer, with service/repairs*
• Car Dealer, no service/repairs*
• Car & Collision Repair*
• Car Rental
• Cell Phone Dealer
• Chiropracter
• Coffee Shop*
• Day Care Facility
• Dog Walker
• Family Dentist
• Family Doctor
• Festival*
• Financial Services (selling)*
• Financial Planner (advising)*
• Florist
• Gas Station-no Service
• Gas Station-with Service*
• Gift Baskets
• Golf Course
• Greeting Card & Gift Shop
• Hair Salon
• Hair Salon With Spa*
• Home Furnishings*
• Home Handyman*
• Home Painter
• Home Staging
• HomeBiz-Avon
• HomeBiz-MaryKay
• HomeBiz-Watkins
• Hotel/Motel *
• insurance*
• Landscaping business*
• Limousine
• Marina (just moorage)*
• Marina (with service/repairs)*
• Maid Service
• Martial-Arts School
• Mortgage Broker
• Office Cleaners
• Performer (Individual)
• Performing Arts Group*
• Photographer
• Pub
• Public Library
• Realtor
• Realtor-Commercial
• Scrapbooking
• Spa-Full Service
• Sports Team*
• Sports League*
• Ski Hill
• Taxi
• Therapeutic Massage
• Travel Agent
• Web Site Designer
• Winery-With tasting shop
• Winery-no tasting shop
• Women’s Consignment*

Items with an *asterisk should review their Categories to see if additional related options can be selected, that reflect what YOU DO or what YOU SELL.

We continue to review the category selections for every business, as part of our “human review” to ensure that each listing has the best chance of being found. Since adopting this Category template list, we have noticed that the number of business/organization listings selecting appropriate categories has dramatically increased.

TEMPLATES PRINTABLE CHEAT SHEET 

We would be pleased to work with industry organizations, professional groups, and chain/franchise organizations to add templates to suit their needs and assist their members to improve their web marketing on FoundLocally.com.