Did you know Step Out Buffalo has a ton of resources to help put your business in front of Western New Yorkers?
At Step Out Buffalo our mission is to help people love where they live. We do this by showcasing all of the great places, people, businesses, events, and things to do in the Buffalo Niagara region.
With an audience of 3.5 million website users and 300,000+ social media followers, we are the number one source for what to do and where to go for both locals and tourists alike. We feature hundreds of informative articles and guides about things to do in the area. To create many of these guides and inform our articles, we use listings.
Listings: What They Are & How They Work
Listings are compilations of information about businesses/venues, organizations, events, deals, and happenings. There are four types of listings on StepOutBuffalo.com: Business Listings, Event Listings, Deal Listings, and Community Updates. Don’t worry – we’ll go into detail about each type of listing below.
Businesses and people can create new listings or claim existing listings on our website. By creating or claiming listings, you can share helpful information about your business, events, deals, or any other relevant updates you may have. It’s completely free to create or claim listings on StepOutBuffalo.com
As soon as you create a listing it will be sent to our editors for approval (which can take 1-3 business days). Once approved, you’ll be notified via email when your listing goes live – which means it’s officially published on StepOutBuffalo.com! You can edit your listings as often as you’d like by accessing them through your main profile page once you’re logged into StepOutBuffalo.com. Please note, you need to create a StepOutBuffalo.com user account to create and claim listings.
Next we will break down the following:
- Types of Listings
- How to Create a Listing
- Tips for Making Your Listing Stand Out
- How to Get More Out of Your Listings
Types Of Listings
There are 4 types of Step Out Buffalo listings you can create based on your needs: Business Listings, Event Listings, Deal Listings, and Community Updates.
Business Listings
Business Listings represent a specific business and allow you to share information about your business. Business Listings can include relevant information such as address, phone number, website, social media links, categories and tags, features, cuisine (if applicable), etc.
Business listings may be featured in relevant seasonal or niche topic guides as well as across our website pages when applicable. For example, a boutique shop’s business listing may be featured on our Shop Page, in neighborhood-based shopping roundups, in category-based shopping articles, etc.
Event Listings
These listings are a way to share information about upcoming events with specific date(s) and time(s). They can be used for events of any size, both in-person and virtual, however events must be open to the public. Event Listings appear on our Event Calendar on our Search & Filter Page, can be featured on our Events Page, placed in specific event-focused guides, and may be included in our Best Things To Do roundups at our editors’ discretion.
Event listings are live from the time they are approved until the event ends. Once the event ends the listing is automatically removed from the website. Recurring events automatically update the dates on the listing to remove past events and only show future dates.
Deal Listings
These listings are shared by businesses and are meant to provide information about a business’s special discounts they currently have, including deals, happy hours, coupons, sales, and specials. Deal Listings are a great way to drive traffic to your business’s physical location and/or website by offering new customers an exciting event, coupon, or actionable deal.
These listings appear in applicable placements throughout StepOutBuffalo.com, for example on our Shop page, Lifestyle page, Beauty & Spa page, Fitness page, Health & Wellness page, and/or dedicated Deals & Discounts page in addition to our Search & Filter Page.
An important note about Deal Listings: Once you submit a deal it will be up on our website for 30 days, at which point they will expire. We encourage you to make your deal something you already offer (and will be offering for at least the next 30 days) to ensure expired offers won’t be found by SOB Readers.
Community Update Listings
These listings are for sharing general information about your business that does not fall under ‘events’ or ‘deals’. Some examples of Community Update Listings may include a business’s updated seasonal hours, new expansion, or new services offered. These listings are featured on our Community Update Board and may occasionally be featured on other articles or pages when applicable. For example, if you would send a press release about it, you should post it as a Community Update Listing on StepOutBuffalo.com!
How To Create A Listing
The first step in creating a listing is to set up a free account on StepOutBuffalo.com. To set up an account you’ll be asked to input your name and email address and create a password.
Once your account is set up you will be able to create or claim Business, Event, Deal, and Community Update Listings.
To do so, follow these steps:
- Go to your profile page
- Click “My Listings”
- Under “Submit New Listing” select the type of listing you want to submit
- Click “Add New”
You can also find links to add listings in the footer of StepOutBuffalo.com.
When you click on any of these options, you’ll be directed to fill out a listing form. The more fields you fill out, the more helpful your listing will be to our audience and therefore more actionable.
Pro Tip: Adding as many applicable categories and tags as possible will help your listings be more discoverable and may get them placed on more guides and pages!
Tips For Making Your Listings Stand Out
Creating and claiming Business, Event, Deal, and Community Update Listings is a great start to get your information on Step Out Buffalo, but if you’re looking to take things to the next level and increase your listing’s effectiveness, there are a few things you can do, which we will go into detail about below.
Why does standing out matter?
There are thousands of listings on our website at any given time, meaning your listings will be surrounded by others that are also vying for the attention of locals and visitors looking for things to do. So what makes yours special? Why should someone choose your event over the next? Why would someone stop scrolling and tap your listing? This is why creating eye-catching listings matters – because that’s what will get your listings the clicks they deserve.
Pro Tip: First impressions matter! A good rule of thumb is to ask yourself what might entice you to tap a listing if you were a potential customer. Remember, people will only tap “read more” if they’re interested – so make your feature image (the first image on the listing) and title count!
Here are a few tips from our editors on what makes for a standout listing:
Photos
Use large, high-quality, descriptive, organic photos with no text. Let’s break down these points even further:
- Quality: Our preferred Image size is 860 x 545 pixels for your listing, with a minimum size requirement of 400 x 400 pixels. This ensures that the images are not blurry, pixelated, or distorted in any way and allows a clear picture for readers to best understand what your listing is about. As stated above, first impressions matter. If a reader sees a blurry image (aka low quality), they are likely to think your event or business will follow suit.
- Organic images: Organic photos are images that were taken with a camera/smartphone and have no text on them. Organic images are a powerful tool that can be used to catch people’s attention, engage them, and help you achieve your marketing goals. How does an image do all that? Organic images tend to garner a more emotional reaction from the viewer, allowing them to picture themselves experiencing the event, product, service, space, etc. and gain a good understanding of how they will feel if they take action.
- Quantity – More is more and variety is more. Our audience comes to us to not only find things to do but better understand what to expect if and when they take action. More images helps them do just that.
- Subject matter: Organic photos do best when they reflect what your listing (ie event, business) is about. For example, if you’re hosting a party, show people having a good time. If you’re hosting a shop sale, show your products. A few more ideas for organic images with relevant subjects:
- Photos of your business (inside or outside)
- The venue where your event is taking place
- Photos from last year’s event
- People having fun at your event
- A flat lay of products from your store
- Drinks that are included in your happy hour special. If your event involves drinking beer, show a pint glass in the photo.
- Stock photos – If possible, we recommend always using your own original photos as they will be the most true to what people can expect from your business, event, products, etc. When using stock photos is necessary, images that look the most real will out-perform very obviously staged / stock photos every time. Use caution when utilizing stock photos on listings as you don’t want to create false expectations for potential customers!
Titles
In general, when it comes to writing your title it’s best to keep it simple and use your business or event name. If you have the ability or desire to be more creative with your listing title, try to make it descriptive and be sure to include any keywords that may help your listing be seen in searches.
For Deal and Community Update Listings, a good title can make all the difference. Start by breaking down the who, what, where, when, and why of your listing. For example, a restaurant hosting a happy hour could consider the audience they’re looking to attract, when the happy hour is taking place, and why someone might want to go to a happy hour. If their target audience was women and the deal was taking place on a Thursday night, a good Deal Listing title could be “Girls Night Out: Thirsty Thursday Happy Hour.
Pro Tip: You should not feel the need to clutter your deal listing title by including your business name. As long as you include your business in the location field on your listing form, it will appear as part of the overall deal view below the title.
Descriptions
The same rule of thumb for titles applies for descriptions – be as descriptive as possible and use keywords.
Descriptions should at the very least include all of the details about your business, event, deal, or news/happening. Our tip? Let your brand personality shine in the description. Try to inform readers in a fun way, after all this is your chance to get people interested and let them know exactly why your business/event/deal is a must. If the goal of the listing photo and title are to hook people, the goal of the description is to seal the deal. *chef’s kiss*
Tags & Categories
These are key to getting your listing to show in the correct placements, on applicable guides, and getting it in front of our editors for additional promotional opportunities! Tags and categories are ways that we categorize listings on the backend so that they show up in applicable guides, pages, etc. Adding these is as simple as selecting these options when creating your listing, then selecting any and all applicable tags and categories.
Pro Tip from our editors: If you skip filling these out on your listing you WILL miss out on free publicity – AKA butts in seats – AKA money in your pocket!
All Fields
When it comes to filling out your listings, the more fields you fill out the better, including your contact information, social media links, website link, categories and tags, price, cuisine and service type for restaurants, etc. Readers want information and want to know what to expect when visiting your business or event, so the more information you can provide them with in your listing the better.
Keep Information Updated
The more up-to-date your listings is, the better informed customers will be and the more likely they will be to take action (visit / buy from / experience your business). A good rule of thumb is to check your listings once every 3 months (monthly for events and deals) and update them whenever information changes.
Important information to keep updated on your listings:
- Hours and days of operation, especially if they’re seasonal
- Links to your website, ticket page, and social media pages
- Offerings
- Prices
- Location
- Photos of your business, products, services etc
- Descriptions of your business, products, services, etc
Pro tip: Take a look at all of the other listings that appear on our website. How can you leverage what other people are doing, and how can you get creative to make your listing stand out from the crowd?
Why Creating Listings Should Be Part Of Your Marketing Strategy
We’re guessing if you’ve made it this far you know why its important to create a business listing – you want people to know you exist! But if you’re still wondering why it’s important to have events or offer deals for your business, allow us to elaborate.
Listings, especially events and deals, are talking points for your business – something to email your customers about, post on social media, or or advertise about. People (your potential customers) have short attention spans and the market is saturated and you need to find a way to stand out against your competition – these are one of the best ways to do so.
Using events and deals as talking points to promote your differentiators can be a key part of any business’s marketing strategy. Events can not only get people in the door but they can also create buzz and helping to spread the word about your differentiators just by people reading a unique or interesting event title. And deals? Deals also can help make sales while giving your business something to reach out to your email list about, something to post on social, something to drive urgency.
Basically, both will help keep you top of mind and give people a reason to visit your business!
How To Get More Out Of Listings
While Step Out Buffalo listings are free to list (and always will be!), if you’re looking for more reach, guaranteed placements, shares on social media, and features in our daily email newsletter you’ll find options for boosting your listings within our paid advertising packages.
Learn more about how promoting your listings works and how Step Out Buffalo advertising can help get you more customers and awareness.
