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What are local citations, and how do they impact local SEO?

What are local citations?

Local citations are online listings of a business’ information. 

The information included in a local citation is the business name, address, phone number and often website link, collectively known as NAP+W data. Citations feature in local business directories, on websites and apps, and across social media platforms.

If you are a local business owner, creating and managing these citations will certainly help to grow your online visibility and authority.

Here is an example of a citation for our local SEO service, based in Croydon, South London.

What does a local directory citation consist of?

NAME, ADDRESS, PHONE NUMBER & WEB ADDRESS

Most important of all is your NAP+W (also often referred to as NAP), i.e.:

  • Your business Name 

  • Your business Address

  • Your business Phone number

  • Your business Web address

If you run businesses in various locations, try not to just link to your home page. A better approach for a multi-location business is to link directly to a location-specific landing page on your website. By reducing the steps for users to get the information they’re looking for, you will improve user experience and this is a winner for search engines.

It’s worth noting that your NAP should be consistent across all of your online listings. There have been a number of independent studies that have shown improvements in local SEO by having a consistent NAP listing, which is not surprising. 

Reviews

Great reviews can help your business gain new clients, and can also increase your ranking. Google references third-party sites including directories for the sentiment of the reviews in order to gauge the quality of a business.

Business Category

Your Google Business Profile allows you to select secondary categories, as well as your primary category. This is a great opportunity for your business to rank for secondary targeted keywords.

Photos

Adding relevant photos of your business could help improve customer conversion rates. If optimised properly, images can help you rank in image searches.

Descriptions

By adding in top keywords, a business description can help improve local rankings. The description can also help search engines further understand your business.

What are the different types of local citations?

Structured citations

Structured citations are the most common type of local citation. They’re the listings of your business on relevant business directories and third-party websites. These websites are huge, pre-existing databases of business information that Google already trusts.

When it comes to structured citations, being listed on the directories that are most relevant to your industry is key. Choosing the most appropriate category for your business is essential, as it helps Google to understand your products or services and helps the right customers find your business. 

For local SEO, it is generally agreed that the following Citations are “must-haves.”

  • Google Business Profile

  • Bing Maps

  • Facebook Pages

  • Yelp

Unstructured citations

Unstructured citations are mentions of your business data on a webpage, but where the information isn’t necessarily grouped together. For example, if your company is mentioned in an online article or blog post. So for example, if your business name is mentioned throughout an article, and your contact number is featured at the end of the content, this is an unstructured citation.

The value of unstructured citations is influenced by three factors:

Location

A mention on a website relevant to your location is usually more valuable than a mention on a website with no local connection. Local residents are far more likely to discover your business from a local source.

Industry relevance

Appearing on websites that are related to your industry or niche is helpful to put your message in front of potential customers. For example, if you run a dental practice, and a nearby chemist talks about your service on its website, this should be more valuable than being referenced on a book supplier’s website.

Website authority

Website/ domain authority is a well-known indicator of a website’s rankability in the eyes of Google. Although industry relevance is more important overall.

Similarities and differences between links and citations

Citations and links are powerful signals that influence both local and organic search rankings. It’s quite common for people to confuse the meaning and importance of links versus citations. In order to maximise your website’s visibility for localised keywords you need to build both of them. Don’t make the mistake of focusing on only one at the expense of the other. This could mean you won’t be visible at all on the 1st page of the search results.

But what exactly are the similarities and differences between links and citations?

Similarities

  • Both are online references to your business

  • These references normally appear on 3rd party sites

  • They often exist on the same page concurrently

  • If done incorrectly, both have the potential to negatively affect your rankings.

Differences

  • A citation must include your NAP info AKA Business Name, Address and Phone Number.

  • A link must be clickable (i.e. clicking it must take the user to your site), but citations are not.

  • Citations have to be consistent, whereas links should be varied.

  • Links improve rankings in organic search results & local search results. Citations improve rankings in local results only.

Why it’s important to keep your citations consistent and accurate

A staggering 80% of consumers lose trust in local businesses if they see incorrect or inconsistent contact details or business names online.

This means not having one phone number in one place, and a completely different number in another. If you don’t keep on top of your online presence, then customers might assume that you are unreliable or no longer in business.

That said, however, if one directory has you down as “Smith's Bakery” and another has you down as “Smiths” it’s unlikely to be a huge issue. Just as long as everything else matches (address, phone number, website address), then Google should be able to work out the connection.

Are citations important for local SEO?

In short, building citations are a fundamental part of a comprehensive local SEO strategy. So if attracting local customers to your local business is important, then citation-building is a must.

Adding your business information to directories and other third-party websites will help consumers to find your business online. Doing so also boosts how authoritative and trustworthy Google considers your business to be, and having high-quality citations will help your business rank accurately across Google’s local search interfaces.

If you’re a local business owner who isn’t currently taking advantage of using citations, then here are 4 reasons why you should be considering these simple local SEO boosters…

1. CITATIONS ARE A reference for Google and other search engines

Citations are believed to help search engines verify that your business actually exists, its legitimacy, and trustworthiness. If the same business details appear across relevant and trusted websites, then Google and other search engines such as Bing, will have increased confidence in the existence of your business. They will trust that your business is operational, and that what you say about it is true. 

According to a survey by Moz, citations are the fifth most important ranking signal for local queries.

2. CITATIONS HELP Improve Local Rankings

As stated above, citations are one of the key factors in local SEO. If set up correctly, citations can lead to improved local rankings.

But, how do you choose the right citations for your business? There are hundreds of potential websites to list a business online, but not all of them will be relevant for your business. Therefore, citation categories exist to help with this. 

Solicitors, wellness, healthcare, property, there is a broad range of categories available to choose from. Interestingly, category relevancy is far more important than domain authority. Getting listed in the correct industry categories is vital for your citation strategy.

As this can be fairly daunting with so many options, building local citations in the correct directories can be done by using a local citation service.

3. CITATIONS CAN HELP YOU TO ‘Piggy Back’ Page 1 Results

As some well-known business directories dominate page one of local search, it’s important to be listed in these. Sites like Yelp and Yellow Pages tend to consistently rank high for most local searches. These popular online directories provide golden opportunities to earn your presence on page one.

4. CITATIONS CAN HELP YOU TO Earn Referral Traffic

Business directories often dominate search results for local queries. Many people are loyal to different directories, such as Yelp! for restaurants, or Hostelworld for hostels. For example, people are trained to go to hostelworld when looking for new places to stay before going to Google.

As people don’t always use Google to find local businesses, getting listed in as many potential directories as possible may earn valuable referral traffic.

How to setup local citations for your business

1. Get listed with the big 4 data aggregators

There are thousands of business directories online. If each directory relied on business owners submitting NAP information, they’d probably have a lot of holes in their data. Business owners just don’t have time to submit to thousands of websites. That’s where data aggregators come in. These companies collect information about businesses and distribute it to hundreds of other websites. If these aggregators have your information, you’ll end up with citations in lots of places. The main four international aggregators are:

  • Factual

  • Acxiom 

  • Infogroup

  • Localeze

2. Submit to other core sites

The ‘big four’ data aggregators distribute NAP information to a number of well-known sites, but not all of them. Therefore it’s useful to research and submit to the core sites in your country directly.

These tend to include:

  • Apple Maps

  • Facebook

  • Yelp

  • Bing Places

  • YellowPages

  • Foursquare

3. Submit to popular industry and local sites

The next step is to look at popular industry-and-location-specific directories. If you run a hotel, you’ll want to make sure you’re listed on TripAdvisor. If you’re a solicitor then you’ll want to make sure you’re listed in lawsociety.com. You get the idea. These are industry-specific citation opportunities.

The physical location of your business gives your business even more citation opportunities. For instance, you’ll probably want to get listed with your local Chamber of Commerce and other local business associations.

4. Pursue unstructured citations

Unstructured citations are completely different. These come from press mentions, reviews, and blog posts about your business. That means they’re generally harder to get than structured citations, and someone has to want to write about your business. 

Often articles include backlinks to the website of the business in question, This is common with unstructured citations, and it’s partly why they’re so powerful for local SEO.

Are you looking to grow your local business’ citations?

We offer local citation-building as a standalone, one-off service, or as part of our great value monthly Local SEO Essentials service. We’ll research the most relevant citations for your business and, each month, improve your local visibility and website authority by adding new local, niche, and general online directory citations for your local business. We can also help to identify and fix inaccurate or duplicate listings.

Who are we, and what is this?

We’re LocalMark, a London UK-based local SEO service that helps connect UK trade, service & retail businesses with nearby customers. This post is one of many that’s been lovingly researched and written by our local marketing experts to help support the UK’s thousands of owners, managers and franchisees with growing their local businesses. If you found this helpful and could benefit from more of the same, be sure to share, follow us on social and sign up for our local business growth newsletter.