Berks Connect
For Business Owners

Claiming Your BerksConnect Business Listing: What Changes

Your business already has a page on BerksConnect. Claiming it is free: here is exactly what changes once you do, what doesn't, how the claim works, what the paid plans do, and what Berks listing pages produced in a month.

Berks Connect Blog|Published October 20, 2026
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Your business already has a page on BerksConnect, the site you're reading, whether you asked for one or not, and claiming it is free: no card, no fee, a few minutes, and the free listing stays free. Claiming lets you fix what's wrong on the page, fill in what's missing, and see how many people are finding it. It doesn't change your place in the list of businesses of your kind. The two spots it does change are a rotating strip of claimed businesses on the homepage and the results of a search typed into the site's search box.

Your page is already here, and claiming makes it yours.

Every Berks County business in the directory has a page, and most of those pages have never been claimed by anyone. If you want to see yours, open the Berks County category list and look for your name under your kind of business, or type the name into the search box.

Claiming means pressing the button that ties that page to you, through your email, so you can edit it. There's no charge for it, you won't be asked for a card, and nothing about the free listing expires later. The paid plans are optional, and nobody needs one to claim a page.

So is it worth the few minutes for your business? The way to decide is to look at what changes and what doesn't.

What changes once you've claimed your page.

The first thing you get is the ability to fix the page. Once it's yours you can correct the name, address, phone number, website and hours, including holiday hours. You can replace the automatically written description with your own words, add photos (ten on a free listing), list the services, products and specialties you offer, and set which categories you belong in. You can also post deals, events, job openings and announcements from your account; they show up on your page and in the site's deals, events and jobs sections.

The second thing is what a visitor sees. On an unclaimed page there's a grey Unclaimed pill and a green Claim button. After you claim, both are gone and a Claimed badge takes their place, and in the category list the same thing shows as the word Verified next to your name. The description is headed with "From" and your company name, and under it the words "In their own words." Nothing else about the layout changes; it's the same page with your words on it instead of ours.

The third thing is a dashboard, which is the page in your account that shows your own page's counts. It's labeled Seen, Page views, Website clicks, Calls and Directions. Seen counts the times your card, the small box with your business in it on a list page, appeared in front of someone, and Calls counts the taps on your phone number. It comes with the free claim, and it's the part worth opening first, because it tells you whether anyone is finding the page at all.

What claiming doesn't change.

Now the question we hear most: does claiming move you up the list? In your category, no. Every category page, which is the page listing every business of one kind in the county, is ordered the same way. The companies whose main work is that trade come first, ahead of a company that lists it as a sideline. Inside each of those two groups the paid plans come first, Premium above Plus, and after them the order the visitor picked, which is most reviews unless the visitor changes it, then rating, then name.

At the top of the first page, above the list, there's room for up to three featured listings, and those go to Premium, then Plus. A claimed free listing sits in the visitor's order with every other free listing.

The paid-plan part of that order is also stated on how BerksConnect works.

There are two places where claiming itself does change where you show up. The homepage has a strip headed "Claimed local businesses in Berks County" that shows four claimed listings, drawn at random from every claimed listing each time the page loads. A listing already among the Premium listings shown higher up the homepage isn't repeated in the strip. And in the list of businesses under a keyword search on the site, claimed listings come after Premium and Plus and ahead of unclaimed ones, with rating and review count deciding the order inside each group.

How to claim your page in five steps.

The whole thing takes a few minutes. These are the steps, in order, as the site runs them.

  1. Find your page. Open the category list and look for your name, or search it.
  2. Press the green Claim This Business button on the page.
  3. Type your email address at the business. If it's an address on your business's own website (the part after the @ matches your site), we email a link there. Press it and you're signed in, no password, and the page is yours.
  4. If your email isn't on that website, you have two routes. We can send the link to any mailbox on your business's website instead, and whoever reads that inbox approves the claim with one press; the page then belongs to that inbox's address. Or you tell us who you are (that route starts with making an account) and we review the claim by hand, usually within one to two business days, and email you the answer. A business with no website of its own on file takes the review route.
  5. Fill in the page. Your part takes a few minutes; the review, if you need one, is ours.

If something on your page is wrong and you'd rather not claim it, tell us through the corrections page and we'll fix it.

What the paid plans do.

As of 2026, Plus is $99 a month or $1,089 a year; it puts your listing above the free listings in its group (main trade or sideline) in your category and your town, with up to 20 photos and a Plus badge. Premium is $250 a month or $2,750 a year; it puts you above Plus and free listings in its group, puts you in the homepage rotation, and allows up to 50 photos and a Premium badge.

Sponsored positions, which are paid spots above the list, sit above Premium, Plus and the free listings. A paid plan doesn't change your rating, the summary of what reviewers keep saying about you, the facts on your page, which categories you can be in, or whether we mention you in a post. You manage or cancel a plan from your dashboard, and your free claimed listing stays available with Basic features if you never buy one. The results of paid placement, with dates, are in our guide to advertising in Berks County; this post doesn't repeat them.

What visitors did on Berks listing pages in a month.

The table below shows what the pages did over thirty days across active Berks County listings, counted by our own counter on the pages.

What visitors did on Berks listing pages Count
Opened a business page 14,934
Tapped a Call button 198
Clicked through to the business's own website 751
Asked for directions 197

Active Berks County listings, September 15 to October 14, 2026, counted on the pages themselves. A tap is not a completed call.

The thing to take from it is that visitors don't just read these pages; they tap the number, the website and the directions. The site had more than fifteen thousand visitors a month as of its October 2026 count, and that count and how it's made are published on our advertising page.

In that same month about half of the active Berks pages were opened at least once. Nearly every claimed page was opened, and the typical claimed page was opened several times while the typical unclaimed page wasn't opened at all. Take that as a description of claimed pages, not as proof that pressing the button does it.

Common questions about claiming.

Does claiming cost anything, now or later?

No. Claiming is free, there's no card, and the free listing stays free. The paid plans are optional, and if you ever try one you manage or cancel it from your dashboard; your free claimed listing stays available with Basic features either way.

Who's allowed to claim a page?

Owners, employees the owner authorized, and agencies with written authorization can claim. The proof is an email address on the business's own website, or, failing that, a review by hand.

Should the page match your Google Business Profile?

Yes. A Google Business Profile is also free to add or claim, and your BerksConnect page should carry the same name, phone number and hours as your Google profile, so a customer who checks both sees one business. If you haven't set Google up yet, setting up your Google Business Profile covers it, and the six free listings worth claiming covers Google, Apple, Bing, Yelp and Nextdoor together.

So, should you claim it today? If the page has your name on it, yes: it's free, it takes a few minutes, and the fixes and the counts are yours from then on. Find your page on the Berks County category list or go claim or add your listing, and fill in the hours and photos while you're there.

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