Local Citations – 2.0
Local Citations
Citations are becoming more and more relative each day, we are able to help you locate and place your company on the appropriate citation sites.
"having my website listed on the local search engines has really helped take my business to the next level"
What Are Local Citations
Local Citations are also known as business listings or online directory listing. They are basically a mention of your company or business in one of these lists. Yelp, Foursquare, Angi, Manta and Spoke are all examples of a Local Citations.
What Are Local Citations
At Simply Web Services, we manually input your business information into our list of local citation websites. This method ensures that the data is accurate, consistent and doesn’t get removed if you stop paying for local citations, unlike many companies that do this using an automated tool, that often injects inaccurate data, causing problems with the search results.
A local citation is any online mention of a business's Name, Address, and Phone number (NAP) on a third-party website, such as an online directory or review site. The citations add more signs of your business being real and relevant to the search engines.
Citations are very important for local SEO because they show search engines that your business is established. Local search has been and continues to be an essential piece of your business strategy.
It helps Google and other search engines to validate your business. The more consistent your citations are (i.e., the exact same name, address, and phone number) across multiple platforms, the better you will rank in local search results
One way to create local citations is to list your business information on online directories, review sites, and regional trade listings. Keeping your NAP information consistent across all platforms will be key.
NAP consistency is simply ensuring your business name, address, and phone number are the same everywhere. Irregular information will only serve to confuse the search engines, adversely affecting your local off-page SEO.
If your business relocates, you must update the address on that citation. It also makes sure that customers can discover you and ensures that your local search rankings remain intact.
Of course, there are companies that you can subscribe to that can make citation management a breeze! However, one major pitfall is that if you stop paying for that subscription, they usually remove all of your listings. At Simply Web Services, we handle this manually, so your listing stays there unless you remove it.
Remember to update your citations in case of changes like a new address, phone number or operating hours about your business. If you are not sure, regular audits can help keep your information up to date
This can be Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business), Yelp, Yellow Pages, Facebook, or a different local business directories. The list goes on, but obviously, you will need to prioritize based on what may be most relevant for your business. At Simply Web Services, we can take care of all this for you.
Inaccurate data can result in your customers struggling, losing faith in you as a business, and potentially reducing your chances of ranking highly in local search results too. The aim should be to maintain accurate and up-to-date information on all websites.
Inaccurate data also skews the NAP data, thus resulting in problems with search results.
Have Questions?
Local Citations are becoming more and more relevant each day, we are able to help you locate and place your company on the appropriate citation sites.