What Are Local SEO Citations?
Local SEO citations are online mentions of your business name, address and phone number (NAP). They’re a crucial part of the local search engine optimisation process. In addition to promoting your business in Google Maps, citations can help you rank better for local searches.
Citations come from a variety of sources, including directories, data aggregators and blogs. They can be a great way to get your business listed on the first page of search results.
There are many different citation building and management services on the market, such as Yext, which allows you to submit your information to hundreds of directories from one place. These services make the process of submitting and managing your citations much more straightforward, and they can save you a lot of time and effort over the long run.
A local citation is an online mention of your business that includes the NAP and links back to your website. This can include directory listings, review websites, and even your social media profiles.
According to a 2018 survey by Moz, citations are still an important local seo citations ranking signal, and they can be used as a form of link building to boost your visibility and authority in search engines. They have also been shown to be a major factor in helping local businesses rank higher for their location terms and to improve their overall business credibility.
If you own a local business, having a presence on as many citation sites as possible is vital for your local SEO. However, the key to ensuring that your citations are correct and current is to make sure that they’re all coming from reputable, reliable sources.
The most important thing to remember about citations is that they need to be accurate and consistent with your NAP information, otherwise they can have an adverse impact on your local SEO ranking. This is especially true if you have a large number of variations of your NAP scattered around the internet and on Google Maps.
Inconsistent citations can be difficult to keep track of and can cause confusion for customers and potentially hurt your search engine rankings. This is why it’s so important to have a good local citation management strategy in place.
There are a few ways to increase your citations and get them as reliable as possible, from using a reputable data facilitator like BrightLocal, which provides an affordable way to manage thousands of citations on behalf of clients, to finding influencers in your industry who can mention you on their blog.
Influencer Marketing is a powerful local seo tool that can help you to generate leads, boost website traffic and increase brand awareness. Reach out to bloggers that focus on your industry and ask them to do a roundup or review of your business, then share it with their audiences.
If you’re not sure how to go about this, a local SEO agency can help you with this, as well as with other local search optimization methods that may be more suitable for your specific business.