Your business is everywhere online.

But is that information correct?

Your website isn't the only place people find your business. Google, Apple Maps, Yelp, Bing, Facebook, GPS systems and dozens of other websites may all have information about you.

And that could be a problem. Because that information isn't always correct.

Maybe your phone number changed. Maybe you moved. Maybe your hours are wrong. Maybe you're missing from Apple Maps, or another important directory, entirely. Or maybe you've got three different versions of your business information floating around the web.

Search engines have to figure out whether all of those listings actually refer to the same business. That's where business listings and citations come in.

A citation is simply a reference to your business online: your name, address, phone number, website and other business information.

Some of these listings also contain a link back to your website. Those links are called backlinks.

Backlinks from other legitimate websites are part of how search engines decide which businesses to show, and it does connect your business to the rest of the web and can contribute to your overall search presence.

The bigger idea is consistency. You want search engines and customers to keep finding the same business information wherever they look.

Building your online business profile across a wide variety of directories and listings is essential for building and maintaining trust online.

You don't have to guess whether your listings are correct. We built a free tool that checks them. Just enter your business name and location.

The scan looks across Google, Apple Maps, Yelp, Bing, Facebook, GPS and navigation platforms and more than 50 other directories. It shows you where your business is listed, where it's missing, and where information may be wrong or inconsistent.

And the scan is free. No account. No email required. The results are generated from live public listing data.

If you find problems, you can fix them yourself. Or, if you'd rather not spend your time chasing down dozens of directories, that's what our 99-dollar-a-month listing management service is for. We handle the setup, syncing and ongoing maintenance across 50 plus platforms.

So before you spend money trying to get more people to find your business, find out what search engines and customers are already seeing. Run your business through the free Business Listing Scan. It takes about 30 seconds.

Go to yfdev.com/business-listing-scan and see what the web says about your business.

Building your online business profile across a wide variety of directories and listings is essential for building and maintaining trust online. Visit Yellowfin Development for more information.