Local Citations: Enhancing Business Visibility Effectively
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Local citations are the placement of your business name, address, and phone number online, otherwise known as your NAP. This information is often spread across classifieds, listing sites, social media, review sites, industry-specific listings, and more.
In a lot of cases, local citations can provide you with a valuable backlink as well but not always. Local citations don’t need to in order to provide your business with value.
Why local citations matter for your business is they provide authority, visibility, and credibility. Your NAP also establishes to search engines that you are a real business, reinforces your locality, and ensures you’re receiving search engine visibility in local searches.
As one can imagine, local citations are key to local SEO and building customer trust. If your NAP is not independently verifiable elsewhere, such as on Google My Business as an example, it may create doubt in users as to how legitimate your business is.
The Power Of Being Found
Accurate citations help customers get in touch with your business. They know where your brick-and-mortar location is and/or where you’re based from, and they know how to reach you by phone if they have any questions or comments.
In terms of local SEO, search engines like Google use the data provided in local citations to assist in formatting and generating geo-targeted search results. This is also key on mobile devices where many already have location activated which plays a role in their search.
Local citations done right mean your business will be more easily discovered online. However, it’s key to get your citations accurate with the correct business information. Accuracy matters. Citations that are not accurate could mean customers using incorrect information and getting confused when that does not lead where they think it will. These are leads you’re also giving up and potentially frustrating to the point where they seek out a competitor.
Citation accuracy equates to increased foot traffic, increased inquiries, and more leads.
NAP Consistency Is Key
Ensure consistency in the presentation of your name, address, and phone number. Your business name shouldn’t vary or be capitalized differently. There should be clear consistency in every listing, indicating to users and search engines who you are and where to find you. Inconsistencies will only confuse customers and search engines.
How you can ensure NAP consistency is maintained is to check your listings regularly. Many businesses outsource this task to a marketing firm or SEO agency as they often have better resources to tackle what often amounts to large amounts of listings.
As long as you’re consistent, NAP in citations is the backbone of more referral traffic and higher local search engine rank.
Where To Get Listed
There are hundreds – if not thousands – of places where you can list your NAP and create local citations, however, not all are worth pursuing.
Primary Platforms
You naturally want to target the most popular and general platform for citations, such as Google, Yelp, industry-specific platforms, and social media accounts.
Local Platforms
Have a glance at local directories relevant to your business location to ensure you’re featured in these as well. Some may be more general than others but this will help you with your local visibility and integrate your business within the local economy online.
Managing Your Citations
Actively monitoring your local citations will keep them up to date and ensure you are accurately represented.
As an SEO agency, All The Way Up Media strongly recommends regular audits of local citations across all platforms. Audits can highlight issues or inconsistencies you may not even know exist. If you don’t have an agency to work on your behalf with local citations, there are paid tools that can help streamline citation management.
In an effort to help with consistency and any updates you have to make to your NAP, we also advise to create a standardized template that can outline any and all information or changes you want included in citations.
Templates are also important because different listing websites may offer opportunity to share more information about your business, such as a business description, industries and categories served, social media links, and photos of your business or products. These can be set up in a template and then, from there, whomever is managing your citations will have all the data ready to put in.
Avoiding Common Mistakes
If you’re new to local citations or are trying to do local citations on your own without a local SEO agency, some pitfalls of citation management tend to come up repeatedly.
Don’t Overuse Keywords
Limit keyword usage. Local citations are not about keyword usage. An overuse of keywords in your business listings can look unprofessional and is unnecessary.
Neglect To Update Citations
When you come to change your business details, it’s key to update all citations to match. Neglecting the perceivably unimportant citations establishes an inconsistency in search engine scanning and can negatively impact your SEO.
Duplicate Listings
Be careful not to have duplicate listings on the same platform. This can weaken your local SEO as a by-product.
Leveraging Reviews For Better Citations
Another aspect of local citations to keep in mind is that they’re often attached to platforms that allow for reviews.
By taking local citations seriously, you increase the chance of obtaining a positive review and boosting your business. There is an unmistakable synergy that happens here that any company can take advantage of.
Positive reviews contribute to your business’ perceived trustworthiness and authority in the eyes of the user and search engines both. This is key to elevating your local SEO efforts and reinforcing to new customers that you’re the real deal. Contrarily, a business with no reviews, mixed reviews, or a long list of negative reviews is a red flag.
There are lots of ways to encourage customers to leave positive reviews on citation sites, particularly if you’re an eCommerce business, such as offering them a discount on a future purchase or by simply asking via email.
In Conclusion
Local citations and NAP are essential to local SEO efforts targeted at creating brand awareness and generating credibility for businesses new and old.
It is imperative that when launching a marketing campaign involving local citations to ensure they are widespread, utilizing correct and updated business information, and that the NAP is consistent across all platforms.
After you have your local citations posted, monitor and audit them regularly. Ensure the information is accurate. Be sure to keep track of online reviews and leverage other tools available on local citation platforms to strengthen your reach.
Without question, local citations utilized correctly are sure to provide your business with a stronger SEO performance.
