An Informative Guide About Building Local Citations
Put simply, a local citation is a term used to describe any mention online of your business's name, address, and phone number. Many SEO experts believe that it's a key factor to rank for local SEO. There are many places that citations appear in—social networks, business directories, and more. As long as it's a place where people search for information on local businesses, citations will appear.
Citations
There are two key uses for citations, namely:
- Helping your business be discovered by potential customers online
- Possibly ranking higher on local search queries
Essentially, citations are meant to help search engines be able to verify a business in terms of trustworthiness, existence, and the very important factor of legitimacy. When the same details are seen across many trusted and relevant websites, that means Google has heightened trust regarding:
- The existence of your business
- The trustworthiness of your business and what's said about it
- Your business being operational
A survey was done in 2018 that showed citations as part of the top 10 ranking signals for local queries. However, given how long ago that was, it's safe to assume that's not accurate. SEO isn’t entirely of the belief that there's importance in citations, either. So getting local citations everywhere probably won't have much of an impact, if at all, on local rankings.
That means the true importance lies in citations that come from sources that are not just trusted, but also relevant. Local SEO services are available in order to have a campaign that's pointed in the right direction as needed.
Discovery
While Google is easily the most powerful, widespread search engine out there, many people don't necessarily use it for finding local businesses. Instead, specialist directories come into play, alongside websites like Yellow Pages, Yelp, and more.
There are two main types of citations:
- Structured Citation - When a citation is structured, it lists the NAP (name, address, and phone number) of a business. Social media profiles and directory listings are key examples. The company’s information is displayed in the same way, with the page built effectively using that data.
- Unstructured Citation - This is a citation that occurs when a business is mentioned in context. These are typically found in the likes of forum posts, blog entries, or through being mentioned by the press.
There are quite a few ways to go about building citations, which can be achieved through manual submission or working with a submission and management service.
- Get listed under data aggregators that hold particular relevance
- Submit to places that are considered core websites in your country (for the United States, that includes Facebook, Apple Maps, Yelp, Foursquare, BBB, and more)
Conclusion
Local SEO benefits from citations, but that's not what it should rely on as a whole. They play a key role in a business being discovered online and possibly ranking higher on search engines. There are structured citations and unstructured citations, which both help with ranking. When it comes to local SEO citation, always work with a reputable digital marketing company that offers results.
Looking for help to get a local SEO citation going? Reach out to Calling Digital today! We are a creative digital marketing agency located in Frisco, Texas.
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