Local Business Search Engine Optimization – Citations

Getting your business found online is critical to getting new customers.  You may want to read a previous article about the importance of ranking your business in Google before you read through this post.

Today, we are going to discuss one component that helps build your brand, enhance off page SEO, and develop you exposure online.

Maybe among the best strategies to foster local business Search Engine Optimization is to ensure the uniformity and the accessibility of your company’s citation listings across a multitude of third party resources. Search engines like Google and Bing continuously scan these websites to come up with a more robust knowledge of your company as well as the local area in which you operate.

What are Business Citations

Citations are described as references to your business name and address on webpages from other sites—even if there’s no link to your website. A good example of a citation may be an online yellow pages directory which lists your company. Citations can be located on a local business organization page that features your business, even though they may not be linking to your website, or on the nearby chamber of commerce web pages.

Citations are an integral part of the position algorithms in Bing and Google. Other factors being equal, businesses with fewer citations will not most likely rank higher than businesses using a larger variety of citations. References from well-recognized and well-indexed portal sites (i.e., Superpages.com) assist in the level of confidence the search engines have about your company’s details and classification. But when your business isn’t recorded — or the info about it’s incorrect or incomplete — there’s a danger of negatively affecting your company’s placements in the search results.

Citations Are Critical to the Online Success of a Business

Citations are particularly significant in less-aggressive markets where companies may not possess a website. The major search engines depend heavily on whatever info they’re able to locate, so without a website, other digital assets become critical.

Hyperlinks and citations from most of these sites can drastically boost your internet search engine positions because they validate the company is relevant to that local area.

Establish, Set Up, and Update Your Business Citations

Build your listings out with website URL, videos, pictures as well as other essential info to make them more educational and appealing to potential clients.

Produce individual listings for every single location where your business is established to foster the visibility of your brand name and each one of your shops/offices.

Local citations can be gained from sites that are familiar to most people and range from Yelp.com, Facebook, and Google to YP, DexKnows, and Yellowbook. Ensure the brand, telephone number, and address are posted and that your company info is constant and precise across all citations. Make adjustments as required and delete duplicate web pages.

There are hundreds of good trustworthy sites from which citations may be received. Finding the websites, creating accounts, posting the company information, and verifying it is exactly the same across all citations can be a long and tedious process. Most small businesses don’t have the time or resources to spend on this type of work. This is just one more reason to find a good agency that provides this type of SEO service. The professionals have curated lists of directories and other citation sites at their fingertips and most likely have a well thought out and efficient system for creating accounts and entering the correct information about a local business.