Citation Building: Methods for Successful Local SEO

Citations are one of the most significant factors in local SEO. When set up properly, citations can lead to improved local rankings and increased local traffic. In this guide, we will help you understand how to properly set up and manage local citations to strengthen your local SEO strategy.

What are citations in SEO?

Any online reference or mention of your business name, website, address, and phone number (NAP) is regarded as a local citation. These citations can appear on search engines, social media platforms, apps, and local directories.

What is included in the citations?

Your NAP is the minimum information needed to create a listing in a directory. However, many websites allow you to include more information, such as:

Business description
Industries or categories of business served
Social media platforms
User ratings and reviews
Photos of your business or products

Types of citations in SEO

Citations can be classified into two categories: structured and unstructured citations.

1. Structured citations

A structured citation is one that follows a specific format, and its format is the same as in traditional business listing directories. Such citations are usually found in local directories and review sites. These citations list the name, address, and phone number (NAP) of a business.

2. Unstructured citations

An unstructured citation is when business is mentioned in a contextual manner, such as through comments on blog posts, forum posts, or press mentions. These mentions helps to boost website’s organic ranking.

Who can create a citation?

Local search citations can be created by anyone, and the power is not limited to the business owner. Some of the common citation sources are social media sites, directories, and even local websites.

Why citations are important in SEO?

Citations help people from a given location find the businesses that offer the products and services they are looking for. They are important for a website in many ways.

1. Score better rankings on search results

Citations are one of the key factors that help search engines determine where to rank your site in the search results. Search engines verify the credibility of your businesses on the basis of citations along with other factors.

2. Enhance the credibility of your business

Listing your business on prominent national and local listings and other websites will help establish the credibility of your business. It will help you establish trust and improve your rank in local search results.

3. Aids business verification

When multiple sources have the same accurate information about your business, it helps search engines verify your information. It indicates to search engines that your business is legitimate.

4. Increase brand awareness

Citation helps boost your brand awareness. When more and more people learn about your business, it increases visibility and awareness of your business among targeted customers.

How do I pick the right citations?

There are manycitation options out there, so you may find it hard to get your business listed in each of them. You need to narrow down your choices logically. Also, when you use tools for citations, there is a limit tohow many directories they sync with.

When you are choosing the citation to list your business, a good rule of thumb is to pick those that are most relevant to your industry.

There are several types of citation websites out there. However, some citation websites are more popular than others. Following are the citations largely considered must-haves in your local SEO.

Google My Business
Bing Maps
Facebook
Yelp

Link building vs. citation

Link building and citation both help enhance the online presence of a business and contribute to its SEO; however, they differ in their approaches. Link building is focused on acquiring quality backlinks to your site from relevant sources. Its purpose is to enhance the website’s authority and strengthen your backlink profile. Citation building, on the other hand, is focused on ensuring your NAP is correctly listed in various directories, sites, and other industry-specific platforms.

How do you optimise your citations?

Optimizing your citation is not an easy, but it is surely worthy in the end. It helps to establish credibility and improve ranking of your business in the search results. Here are some effective tips to optimise your citation to reap the maximum benefits.

1. Claim your Google My Business

Make sure your Google My Business (GMB) listing is accurate, complete, and optimized. Keep track of your listing’s performance by using the GMB Insights dashboard, which provides data on search queries, views, and customer actions.

2. Create your listing on local directories and niche sites

By listing your business in these directories, you can increase your chances of being ranked by Google and, hence, found by potential customers. Some of the prominent local directories and niche sites used largely for building citations are as follows:

Yelp
Yellow Pages
Angi (formerly Angie’s List)
TripAdvisor

3. Use data aggregators

Data aggregator sites aggregate and distribute business information to various directories and search engines on behalf of a business. Some of the most popular data aggregators for local businesses in 2024 are

Data Axle
Neustar Localize
Foursquare
Factual

4. Regularly monitor and update your local citations

It is not enough to put your information in local directories and niche sites. You need to regularly monitor your citations across different sources and fix errors promptly.

What are the best practices to optimise citations?

Here are some tips to effectively optimize citations for SEO:

1. Make sure to pick relevant citation sites

There are several citation sites out there; however, not every website matters to your business. Some of these citations may have good authority, but their potential audience may be different from your business. You must avoid listing on such sites. When choosing citation sites, give preference to those that are populated with your target audience. It will help to bring more direct traffic to your site.

2. Ensure NAP consistency

Make sure your details, such as name, address, and phone number, are consistent across all your listings. Visit and verify all the sites where your business is listed, and ensure that your NAP details are the same across the board.

If your business has recently moved to a new place, there are two things to consider with respect to citation. First, make sure your location is updated across all directories. Also, certify that the business or company that previously occupied the location has also changed its location.

3. Add Photos

Adding photos of your business improves your chances of appearing in image searches. It is recommended to optimize the image file name and alt text if the option is provided in the directory.

4. Cite proprietary information

It is not necessary to end your listing with NAP details. Instead, you need to include details in the citations that matter to your customers. Thus, you can provide information like operating hours, photos, and even links to your different platforms.

5. Website link

Many businesses just add links to their home pages. However, it is better to link the citation site directly to your business location page. It helps reduce the steps for users to get the information they need and has the same effect on search engines.

6. Reviews

When your business gets great reviews, it not only helps you earn new business, but also helps to improve your rankings. Google considers reviews about a business on third-party sites to evaluate the quality of businesses.

7. Add a keyword-centred description

There is a description box available on most of the citation sites. It is recommended to use your targeted keywords in a logical and precise manner to describe your business and put it in the description box. It will help to improve the ranking of your site.

8. Quality of citation

The quality of the citation site needs to be equally considered. It is recommended to list your business on sites that are considered trustworthy by Google. If you list your business on more questionable sites, it can have the opposite effect.

9. Target websites and press messages

It is advised to target websites and press mentions by providing accurate address and contact information or asking the website to add it when they mention your business. When you provide good customer service, your business may attract mentions and positive reviews from your customers. The key here is to ask for NAP information when your business is mentioned or ensure it is accurate.

10. Keep the information up-to-date

Make sure to keep your information consistent and correct to make it easy for customers to contact you. Make sure to regularly check and update your details. It also sends a positive signal to search engines and improves the credibility of your business.

How to track the status of local citations?

1. Manually tracking the status of a local citation

Once you have created and optimised the citation, it is important to regularly maintain it. If you fail to do it, you will lose all the SEO and consumer benefits you are deriving from it. It is prudent to have a structured system to track the status of your citations to stay updated with the complete picture and take necessary action.

You can track the status of your citations manually using a spread sheet. Make sure your spreadsheet lists each citation along with information such as the date it was created, the date it was last checked, the listing URL, and confirmation if it is accurate. It is good to create a column to track if and when citations are lost and also note the measures taken to improve them. How often you check the status of a citation depends on various factors. However, it is a good idea to check citations at least once a month. Manual revisions can consume a lot of time, especially when you have to keep track of thousands of citations. There are citation tools that can make life much easier and save hours of effort by automating the process.

2. Using tools to automate tracking citations

Citation tracker tools can automate the review process and are often more efficient than manual checks. Some of the popular tools used for tracking local citations are Whitespark, Yext, Moz Local, SEMrush, etc. These tools can easily flag up inconsistencies in name, address, and phone number (NAP) data, compare your profile with competitors, and make it easy and quick to check if the total citation count has gone up or down.

How to Track Citation Performance?

There are many tools out there that can help track citation performance in varying degrees; however, none of them can track how they perform on your website. One of the easiest methods is to add UTM tracking to URLs and add the same campaign or source name to your URLs.

Example:

https://www.yourwebsite.com/location/cityname?utm_source=citation&utm_medium=referral

By using this method, you can easily search in Google Analytics for “citation” under the Source/Medium report.

Conclusion

Local citations are online mentions of your business name, address, and phone number (NAP). They help search engines verify your legitimacy and improve your local search ranking. To optimise local citations, claim listings on directories, ensure NAP consistency across platforms, and encourage customer reviews. By using the right tools and techniques, you can optimize your citations for maximum benefits. It helps to increase the credibility as well as ranking of your website.

eSearch Logix for customised local SEO services

If you don’t have time or the right sources to manage local citation, esearch Logix experts can help you with it. Our professionals manage and improve your local business citations as part of local SEO campaign. If you want to make maximum benefits out of local SEO, connect with our local SEO experts today.

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