Local Knowledge prides itself on understanding local business listing data for the Middle East.

We say ‘local listings’ because most businesses in the region have an officially registered business name but have a ‘doing business as’ name out in the marketplace. These registered business names often seem to end up becoming the business listings shared on search engines and digital mapping platforms. For these businesses to be found by B2B and B2C consumers they really need to be transformed into "local business listings”.

Over the past 10 years we have compiled, verified, name adjusted, deduplicated, categorized, geocoded, translated and managed millions of Arabic and English business listings in the region. Transforming them from unstructured business listing data into structured accurate local business listings. Local listings ready to be found by consumers on the local search and mobile mapping platforms of the world.

Each country in the region is unique apart from the local language. In the Middle East a majority of registered business addresses are PO boxes with the physical location of the business someplace else. This other or real location is the business bricks and mortar location that customers need to discover on their mobile devices or whatever search platform they are using.

Though automated geocoding of business listings is a fairly successful practice in the west, it does not offer consistent results or accuracy in the emerging markets of the Middle East. For that reason, geocoding is very much a manual process, but thankfully it only needs to be done once as the physical structure doesn’t move but sometimes the business operating in the location might change.

Compiling and verifying business listings in Middle East requires a local team, a team that actually lives in the country or region. Don’t count on a call centre 8,000 kilometers away to understand a local business listing in the Middle East.

Local Knowledge business listing and geocoding experts are ‘local’ and call on a life-time of local knowledge and an expert understanding just of what a ‘business location’ is relative to local search and business discovery.

Transforming business listings into local listings is not rocket science but a little local knowledge sure helps.

Local Knowledge FZE is a proud member in good standing of The Local Search Association (LSA) and The Search & Information Industry Association (SIINDA).