For any brick-and-mortar business, listing your name, address, and phone number on your website goes without saying. Your current and potential customers must be able to find you, after all. This information is known as a structured citation in the world of SEO (Search Engine Optimization). While it may seem like a no-brainer to simply list it on your site, it has more than just the obvious benefits.
At Compete Now, our web design agency helps businesses elevate their SEO with our experienced and up-to-date knowledge with informative content, relevant keywords, backlinking, and more SEO strategies as they change. If you’re interested in growing your online presence and ranking above competitors, we encourage you to browse our SEO plans. In the meantime, learn about local SEO below.
What is a local citation?
A local citation is any listing of your business’s information. It can include any of the following, known as NAP:
- Name
- Address
- Phone Number
Or any combination of the above. Unless the citation has all of the items listed above, it’s considered a partial citation.
They come in two flavors: structured and unstructured. A structured citation is one that is found on a directory website such as Yelp, Superpages, or Bing. Potential customers search for your company via keywords with the end goal of finding your company’s contact information.
An unstructured citation is one that is found on blogs, affiliate websites, event websites, and newspaper websites, to name a few. These listings will have your company’s name and information listed together and available for a search engine to index.
How do citations help my website?
When you list your business with the major yellow pages and review websites, make sure you provide a link to your website. One of SEO’s Best Practices is to increase backlinks to your website as much as possible. Major search engines, like Google, Bing, and Yahoo!, use them as a way of determining the value of your site and thus its standing on the SERPs (Search Engine Results Page).
The citation itself, structured or unstructured, provides value in and of itself. If your business is running a local event, make sure it’s listed on local newspaper sites with your company’s name, address, and phone number. The more all of this information appears together, the stronger it appears to the search engines. Voila, the higher you rank in the SERPs.
How can I build my local citations?
Use Local Keywords
Integrating local keywords into your website’s content improves your local search visibility. Keywords are the terms users search online. Search engines like Google then rank websites and their content based on the relevancy and quality of the content to the keyword.
For instance, if someone searches for “blue running sneakers,” Google will provide the most relevant “blue running sneakers”-related websites first in the search results. If you were a business selling sneakers in Boston, MA though, you may want to use local keywords. Therefore, you may opt to include a keyword like “blue running sneakers in Boston, MA” throughout your website in order to meet those users in Boston. We highly recommend finding and analyzing keywords in tools like SEMRush that provide data on how often it’s being searched and how difficult it is to rank well for it.
Add Your Website to Directories
It’s important to use a mixture of unstructured and structured citations. While using local keywords in your content applies to unstructured, adding your business to online directories offers a structured citation solution. As mentioned previously, a directory withholds all of your business’s updated information. A directory we use as a small business, and urge all of our clients to take advantage of, is Google My Business.
The benefit of Google My Business is having a personal listing (as pictured below) on Google for your business that includes your business’s phone number, address, website, customer reviews, photos, and more.
Having a Google My Business profile helps build that local SEO while also building trust with customers.
Make sure your business is added to reputable platforms like Yelp, TripAdvisor, Yahoo!, and Bing. You can also research industry-specific directories that are relevant to your business.
Build User-Generated Content
Strengthen your local citations by encouraging past clients to leave your business a review or share content from your services in order to enhance your local ranking and boost credibility.
Maintain NAP Consistency
NAP refers to your business’s name, address, and phone number. These three components must be consistent across all online listings, from website mentions to the bio in your social media profiles. This is fundamental to building your local SEO and ensuring that customers are finding you. You can use citation management tools to monitor each time your business is referenced to confirm those details are correct.
Contact Compete Now for Professional SEO Assistance
Staying up to date with local citations is essential to maintaining a strong online presence. By leveraging these local citation tips, you can significantly enhance your local search rankings and visibility. If you’re looking for assistance in this space, don’t hesitate to reach out to us. Check out our SEO plans to learn more!
