by Lindsay Pietroluongo
This article explains the role of a local citation builder in SEO for geo-based businesses.
Improving your geography-based search rankings and visibility on search engines like Google is essential for local businesses that are trying to reach potential customers. A key component of local SEO is local citation building, which helps businesses create consistent listings on multiple platforms.
In this article, we’ll explain what citation building is, the different types of local citation building software out there, and why creating a listing strategy is so important for your business.
NetReputation provides information and services to help you protect your digital presence and business data online. Call us at 844-461-3632 to learn more about citation management, or fill out the contact form below for a free consultation.
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What Is Local Citation Building?
The term “local citation” refers to a business listing in an online directory. These listings include basic information about your business, such as its name, address and phone number, also referred to as NAP.
The phrase “local citation building” refers to the process of creating business profiles and listings in several relevant third-party directories and on industry-related websites.
Ideally, you’ll have your business listed in major directories as well as smaller, more industry-specific and hyper-local directories. This ensures you have the best reach possible.
Overall, creating and managing your business’ location citations can improve brand visibility and ranking in local search results.
You can take control of your online business data and improve local search visibility. Call us at 844-461-3632 for more information.
Why Are Local Citations Important?
Local citations do a lot more than simply display your business info online. They’re a key factor that Google and other search engines use to decide how credible and relevant your business is to users.
When search engines are able to find consistent NAP info on high-authority platforms, your business’ legitimacy is reinforced. Google believes that those local businesses are real and active. This is particularly important for local businesses that want to stand out on Google Maps, where getting prominent placement is competitive.
Additionally, local citations affect customer trust. With citation building, potential customers will see your info on various sites. The more they view your local citations, the more they’ll believe your business is what you say it is.
Even as Google refines its algorithms, local businesses will likely continue to benefit from local citation building.
At NetReputation, we work with brands to help them build local business listings online. Give us a call at 844-461-3632 to learn more.
Creating, Auditing and Enhancing Citations for Local Businesses
It’s best to add your business profile to sites that are relevant to your business, niche enough to target your specific audience, and well-established. In addition to dedicated business listing directories, also add your business information to review sites and social media platforms.
When it comes to local SEO, a Google Business Profile listing is the most important citation you can have. Other high-profile business directories include:
- Bing local businesses
- Facebook (business page)
- Yelp
Additionally, having listings in industry-specific directories will help you reach the right audience.
Make sure to add rich content to enhance your local citations, such as a thorough business description and customer reviews. Furthermore, fill out each business listing as much as possible. Some will have additional room for business details, such as operating hours, social links and more. Use all of the space available to your advantage.
Moreover, auditing your existing business citations will help you to identify and correct any inaccuracies or inconsistencies about your business. Make sure to regularly review all of your listings to ensure they’re still accurate, too.
It’s important that all of your citations contain the same information without discrepancies. Having an accurate and consistent presence across multiple platforms is key to showing your audience and search engines that your business and website are trustworthy.
Using Data Aggregators to Create and Update Listings for Local SEO
If you’re in the process of creating local citations for your business, you may have heard the term “data aggregator” by now. How does this technology work when it comes to local citation management? Let’s get into it.
Data aggregators collect business and consumer data. From there, the aggregators provide that information to other listing directories, review websites and search engines to create local citations for you.
Commonly, the information that’s sent to aggregators is refreshed monthly, allowing these services to always have accurate, up-to-date information.
Data aggregator networks expedite the local citation-building process by claiming multiple citations fast across a variety of platforms. As a result, this can help improve the distribution of your local citations and gain more visibility online.
Often, you can exercise a certain amount of control over this process by selecting the data aggregator partners you’re most interested in. This ensures that your listings end up on impactful networks instead of showing up on non-relevant platforms.
To have your business data submitted to an aggregator, it’s best to work with a citation service. Often, these services charge an annual fee to maintain your connection to the data aggregator and ensure accurate information is dispersed online.
Business Citation Management Services To Improve Local Search
There are different types of citation management services you can choose from, including manual, semi-automated and fully automated. Let’s go over the different options to determine which one may be the best choice for you.
Creating Manual Listings
With this type of citation management tool, businesses can directly control their citations without having to depend on a third party to add the information. However, while you’ll have more control over your listings, this strategy takes a significant time commitment to build and manage your citations.
Semi-Automated Local Citation Builder
A semi-automated service automates the sharing of local business data to certain platforms, and on other platforms, you’ll manually build your listings.
While this may sound like a great option at first, consider this: Many semi-automated citation services don’t provide ongoing management after the initial submission.
Automated Business Information Listings
With an automated service, you’ll input your business information into the dashboard, and then that data will be automatically submitted to various listing directories. You can do this to update your data, too.
This option can greatly reduce the time you’d need to spend managing citations. It’s also useful for finding and deleting duplicates, which can confuse search engines.
How Do Citations Help Local SEO Campaigns?
Claiming and optimizing your local citations can definitely improve local SEO. Having accurate business information builds trust with your audience. Ensuring your NAP information (name, address and phone number) is the same on every listing is essential for ranking highly and helping customers trust your brand.
You’ll want to make sure to do the following:
- Add complete business information
- Drive new customer reviews
- Gain strategic backlinks
Keep this in mind: Search engines refer to local citations to verify the accuracy of your business information. If you have varying information across your listings, search engines may not deem your business credible or reliable. This could negatively impact SEO and rankings.
Structured vs. Unstructured Local Citations
In addition to citation building and updating existing citations, there’s another type of business “listing” to be aware of: unstructured citations.
Unstructured citations are those mentions that occur outside of local citation building on dedicated directories. These types of mentions of local businesses fall into this category:
- Blog posts
- Event listings
- Forum discussions
- News articles
- Social media posts
Unstructured citations typically don’t have all of the business info that structured citations have. For example, a review of your restaurant may include the address but not the phone number; a blog post about your boutique may not include business reviews.
However, just because this is a less-managed type of citation building doesn’t mean that this information isn’t important to local businesses.
Make sure to monitor the web for mentions of your business. Unstructured citations can validate your business and build backlinks, which improve your local search rankings.
Final Thoughts About Citation Building for Local Businesses
Citation building isn’t a one-time to-do list task; instead, you’ll want to build local citations and update existing citations regularly to ensure your brand stays visible online. This can lead to higher rankings in local search results, more leads and increased foot traffic at your place of business.
We offer local SEO services and citation management for businesses. Get started today with a free consultation with one of our experts. Call us at 844-461-3632 or fill out the contact form below.