So you want to rank locally? If you have already worked hard to add a few citations, complete your on-site local optimization, acquire customer reviews, and build some locally relevant links, well, now it's time to shift your focus. According to David Mihm, citations make-up roughly 25% of the overall local ranking factors.
Why It's Time to Change Your Thinking...
I've mentioned before that it's time to stop chasing links, and for local SEO it's time to stop chasing citations! What do I mean by that? If your whole purpose for creating citations is to improve your local rankings, then you are probably relying too much on Google. What would happen if those rankings were to suddenly go away? Instead of viewing the process building your brand in the local ecosystem as a laborious task that needs to get done so that you can rank, then you aren't seeing the big picture.
Each of the citation sites that you're trying to get listed on were created with goals far beyond just helping businesses rank for Google's local results. In most cases, they were created to provide a good customer experience and send potential shoppers to worthy vendors. Each of these sites gets their own traffic, and setting up your business listing on them is another place for potential customers to find you.
Below is a quick example from a fairly low traffic attorney site. In a one month period, they are getting traffic from other websites where their citations also reside.
It's time to change your mindset and get motivated to start building citations for the right purpose. If you do that, the rankings you long for will come with it. Now, here's how we find and get our business listed in these citations in an organized and speedy fashion at my firm.
Make Sure Your Information (N.A.P.) is Accurate.
Having accurate information that correlates across your website, Google Plus page, and local ecosystem citations is the most important part of building and fixing your businesses citations. Your business Name, Address, and Phone Number (referred to as N.A.P. format) is essential for local rankings. Make sure this information is 100% consistent before moving forward!
Below is an example of the appropriate NAP format for a Law Firm:
The Reeves Law Group 515 S Flower St Los Angeles, CA 90071 (213) 271-9318
You will notice that most directories display information like the example above. Some will allow you to add a link to your website, but some will not. In this case, the link is not the important information. The accurate listing of the business in the NAP format is.
We've established that having accurate and consistent listing information is critical, so how do we do it?
The Easy Way May Not Be the Best Way
One easy way to get listed consistently on multiple directories is by using a service like Yext. While that can be a great option, depending on your situation, make sure you know what you are getting into. Yext, for example, will easily publish to dozens directories with the information you submit. Some will start showing instantly, and some will come up within a few days with very little work. But at over $475 a year (yes, annually) for the retail version, you might think twice about it.
If you are not looking to purchase services like Yext...
Here are Three Fundamental Steps to a Great Alternative Approach:
Prepare Your Information
I always like to start by creating a quick Google Doc with the client's NAP information at the top. This allows me to easily copy and paste the fields if I need them while I'm building citations. It also allows me to keep the data consistent across the board. Typically, I ensure my Google Plus page is 100% accurate with my business information, and then copy and paste the information from Google Places. I will also use this same Google Doc for tracking my citation sources in one easy to use place.
Feel free to download this free Local Citation Building Template.
In case you decide not to use the spreadsheet I created, you will see I have fields for some of the most common information that citation sources ask for- including:
- Your Name - Your actual name or the name of business owner
- Email Address - The Email Address that will be checked by the business
- Company Name - The company's exact name as it appears correctly on Google Plus
- Address - The company's exact address as it appears correctly on Google Plus
- Suite or Floor Number - Only use if there is a Suite or Floor number
- City - The company's exact city name as it appears correctly on Google Plus
- State- The state the company resides in
- Zip - The zip code of the company
- Phone Number - The LOCAL phone number of the exact business location
- Landing Page For Location - The landing page for that office or physical location
I also added some advanced fields that I also see on some submission sites. Here are some examples:
- 800 Number - The 800 Number of the Business
- Logo URL - The URL of the company's logo hosted on your website
- Facebook URL - The Facebook URL of the company
- Twitter Handle - The company's Twitter Handle
- Places Page Link - A Link to their G+ Local Page or Google Places Page
**Below is an example of the header from my Local Citation Building Template.
Citation Building Can Be a Bit Tedious, So Here's an Easier Way...
If you're like me and you have the attention span of a lemming, then you need some reinforcements. But when dealing with something that's so important, how do you prevent data corruption and ensure accuracy at the same time?
My answer is Roboform and it costs between $9.95 and $39.95. To be clear I am not affiliated in any way shape or form, it's just the program that I found works best for me. So, I will share how I use it.
Roboform allows me to input the information about a location and have it autofill on many of the submission sites. It's not perfect and it requires a manual review, but spending a couple of minutes setting this up is worth its weight in gold. Not only will it ensure it outputs what you put into it, but it will also store the information and you can share the data with your team. It will also integrate into your browser where you can use a drop down and select the auto fill information you want. Basically it just saves a ton of time.
How to use Roboform for Citation Building
Once you've downloaded the program from Roboform.com and installed it, you can open it up and go to File > New > Identity to create a new identity. You will end up creating and naming a new Identity for each different business location you have. You can then click the edit button and spend a few minutes and fill out all of the information you want to your heart's desire. If you're just building citations through Roboform, then you can stick to the Person, Business and Address sections and only fill out the fields I have listed in my spreadsheet.
Start off with the Person section and fill out the following fields that are circled below including:
- First Name - The first name you want to display on the listing. Typically, it is the same as the person registering the account.
- Last Name - The last name you want to display on the listing. Typically, it is the same as the person registering the account.
- Phone - The Business Phone Number for that location (Your NAP)
- Email - The mail address that is going to register the account and be the contact email. Use this if they're going to be the same email.
Next Move On To the Business Section
On this page, I typically only use the company name and website. The company name will be the actual company name in your NAP format and the website will be the landing page of that physical location. Sometimes these are truncated to just the domain, but it's always better to try and get the link you receive to go to the actual landing page for that location.
Lastly, You Can Move onto the Address Section In this section you will add your address from the NAP format.
And that takes care of that part!
Now you are setup to start finding citations and knocking them out! We will use Roboform to auto fill the fields instead of typing them each time. They will still require manual review but it will save a lot of time!
Now, Let's Get Listed on Some Local Directories, AKA: Build Some Citations
The goal of doing all of this citation is work is to make sure we end up with good data. Check it to make sure you're not already listed before you add your listing to each of these websites. Spamming the web is not cool; even if it is unintentional. So follow this quick three step process called CHECK, FIX, ADD.
- Check to see if the listing is there
- If the listing is there, make sure the NAP is 100% accurate. If not, fix it!
- If the listing does not exist, add it
If you are using the free Local Citation Building Template I created, you will see a list where you can easily add the information along with notes about your new citation sources. I highly suggest keeping track of this information. Remember that you're not just doing this to impress the search engines. You want to have access to this information in the future. What if you decide to move one day and didn't have this?
A Screenshot from the spreadsheet:
At my company, I also give this information to our clients in the unlikely case that they felt we were doing a bad job and wanted to fire us.
Make Sure You Have the Top Citations
Whether your business is brand new or old and established, I suggest you start off by adding a new listing or correcting your incorrect listing at the Top Citation Sources suggested by Getlisted.org. They worked hard to put together this list of citation sources they believe carry the most weight in different industries and geographic areas. They provide two great resources to act as a starting point:
View the Top Citation Sources by City
View the Top Citation Sources by Category
Just like with every citation source you come across, make sure to add them to your tracking spreadsheet.
Next, Don't Re-Invent The Wheel. Find Your Top Competitors
Do you already know who your top competition is? Check them out and see who ranks consistently for the keywords you want to rank for.
Finding citations a year or two ago was a bit harder than it is today. These days you have some easy and affordable options to see where your competing businesses are listed. In this article I will discuss an easy way using Whitespark's Local Citation Finder and another method for searching for them manually through Google. As with any data collection, I always recommend using multiple sources to ensure greater accuracy.
Method #1: Using Whitespark to find your competitors citations
Start by navigating to the "Your Projects" tab. 
Step 1: Create a new project. To keep things organized, I will typically create a new project by using the "+ Create new Project" button under the "Your Project" tab. It will ask you for your business Name and Phone Number and hit the Create Project button.
Step 2: Find Citation Sources by Keyword - Use the option to "Search By Keyphrase" and enter the keyword information you want to rank for.
Step 3: Wait For the Results - After starting the search, wait for a few minutes for it to compile the results. In my experience, it's typically pretty fast. You will also get a confirmation email when the process is complete.
Step 4: See What Came Out and Start Getting Citations - After it's complete, click back on the your "projects link" to see a list of your projects. Select the pink Citation Sources link to see what results came up for your listing. One of the best things about Whitespark is that they have also compiled site submission URL's in their data.
For some listings, you can easily just click the link "Submit Your Business". You can then just use the RoboForm drop down to autofill the information making citation building simple! You may not want to bring Whitespark home to mom because she's so easy.
Method #2: Conduct a NAP Search in Google
You can also conduct the searches you want in a search engine, and come up with your top competitors. This is also a great way to do it because you can use the compare option to see which competitors have.
To do this, simply pull up Google and enter your competitors NAP information. Below I entered a company name, their address, and phone number that I found from their Google Plus Local page.
With this information, I can now visit each one of these sources, and add my business to the same sources if they allow a submission. You will find some sites do not allow submissions, or are owned by the business themselves. Whitespark has a cool option to mark these as useless which makes their data very clean and accurate.
Be Very Careful If You Outsource Citation Building
If you don't have the time and are considering outsourcing citation building please be careful, and have some serious QA. If your people are not being meticulous with your data, you're going to have a lot of data confusion on your hands, and spend twice the amount of time trying to fix it. On the other hand, some companies like Whitespark offer these services a la carte as well.
Want to Learn More?
If you want to learn more advanced citation building after you have exhausted these resources, I suggest you read my write up of some tips from David Mihm's presentation from Local U Advanced Baltimore. Better yet, if you have a chance make sure you attend the next Local U Advanced session.
Good overview of NAP citation building... however, I can't believe no one has even mentioned 'duplicate' listings yet (in the article nor comments.) ;)
In addition to these 3 steps that Casey provided, I think in many (or most?) cases, a 4th very large step is involved, which would be ... "duplicates exist?".
For most of my clients I come across duplicate listings within a single IYP (internet yellow page) website. I try to get rid of duplicate listings before (or while) I work on optimizing existing listings.
I'd love to encourage a client solicit reviews to their Yelp listing... but if they have 3 or 4 'other' duplicate listings on the same website. You may be gaining reviews on the wrong listings!
So the overall (simplified) process would be:
I find it takes a few days for the IYP websites to respond to a listing removal request. Some respond the same day, within hours... some don't respond at all, yet they will remove duplicate listings. In some cases it may take a few weeks or when follow up emails are needed, it could take a month or more.
What I have done is I setup up bookmarks in a special folder in my browser for 'Citation Removal Cleanup'. Here I list the contact page or removal form for each of the sites that I work with mostly. If there is no online removal form, I will book mark the contact us page and edit the bookmark title to include the email address that I used.
Good luck with it all!
Russofford, You make a great point that really needs to be highlighted. It's much easier if you're working with a new business of course where you wouldn't have these issues. However, it's important to correct and fix the NAP on every listing you have and ensure consistency. You make a great point about the duplicate listings as well. You must ALWAYS search for your listings first and only add them if they dont exist. If they do exist you must correct them.
I'm really excited to try RoboForm! Hopefully this will help make the citation process a little bit easier. Thanks Casey!
A great alternative to RoboForm, particularly since their basic tool is free, is LastPass.com. You can build multiple forms including custom fields. Plus it's a great tool for password management.
Really useful and comprehensive information Casey. Excellent time saving tips and resources. Thanks for taking the time to put this together for us.
What a great way to compliment the WBF!
Thanks Alex!
Surprised nobody's mentioned - as a Pro SEOMoz member, you actually qualify for a special PRO Perk 20% discount off subscriptions to Whitespark's Citation Finder which Casey talks about! https://www.seomoz.org/pro-perks Casey, you might even want to add that as an update on the post?
Another vote for LastPass for managing the form filling process (Win/Mac/Linux). There are other free form management plugins/extensions for browsers too, but since I use LastPass heavily anyway, I haven't tried them in a while.
Terrific post, and I really like the focus on getting away from complete dependance on Google rankings for businesses, especially small/local ones.
Paul
Thompson, I just started using Lastpass this week and so far I seem to like it. It seems like another great solution, especially when you're dealing with multiple clients.
Nice post Casey, another suggestion for automated form filling would be LastPass. I use to manage passwords and auto fill forms using different personas, best of all it's free.
Thanks for the feedback. I'm going to check it out right now! I do enjoy free :P
Love the idea of using an automatic form filler. Wish I would have thought of that before I developed carpal tunnel in my pinky from constant tabbing to the next form field.
One thing you did not mention is the importance of of big data providers like Localeze(now a product from Neustar) and Infogroup. A lot of listing sites source their information from these data providers. If you're business is incorrectly listed on these sites, that mistake may replicate on other sites. If you're not listed on these data providers, adding your info to them is like obtaining two citations with one form - if ya'll catch my drift!
Thanks for sharing Casey. Always good to read about others' local search processes.
Shredward, you are absolutely correct in mentioning the importance of Localeze. One good way for to see how data affects other sources is to take a look at the Local Search Ecosystem PDF from Getlisted.org.
That is such an awesome resource.
Great post Casey! Citations are the important ranking factor to get rank on local Google listings for your local keywords. NAP need to be 100% same even small mistake like “Street” instead of “St” do make a lot of difference to Google and can harm your local ranking.
And Whitespark's Local Citation Finder is also my favorite tool when it comes to find citation opportunities. :)
Nouman, yep! Data consistency is key, which is why these tools really help out!
Hey Nouman,
Google canonicalizes addresses when it finds them. It can do a pretty good job of matching variations of the address where one is with street and the other is with st. Those kinds of minor differences are ok. This info comes directly from the Google Places support team.
Some great info here. Your post is timely as I was recently recommended to use Whitespark after getting some great reviews that they are good at what they do. I like that they will do research for me to check out anything out there that is wrong. I am positive that I have profiles out there from quite a while ago that I don't even know exist. They should be able to find all that and fix them for me.I welcome being able to figure out what my competition is doing too. Their prices don't seem to be difficult to swallow either. I am certain to check out Roboform too. Glad to read all of this as it is good to know that I'm headed in the right direction.Thanks
Casey,
Thanks for the primo post. We've been rabid RF (RoboForm) users for years, but I've never thought of using the profiles for inputting clients' info. That is brilliant!
For anyone on the RoboForm fence- the nominal annual charge is well worth it to keep track of our 600+ Logins. Then there's SafeNotes, SearchCards, password generation, etc.etc. Check it out :)
Thanks again
P.S. I use the SearchCards to submit a clients url to multiple sites when doing research, works like a dream.
Thanks, always good to hear reaffirming posts on local search citation. I hadnt used RoboForm before, checking it out now .
Thanks Erik. I'm also checking out Lastpass since someone recommended that as well.
Ill take a look at that one too. RoboForm seems pretty good so far.
"Local Directories AKA Local Citations"...Interesting.. ! Makes me think that once a upon a time, there was a popular service called directory submissions.. :P
Thanks for posting this Casey!
Good stuff Casey. I actually gave this to a colleague as a crash course in citations. Worked perfectly as a supplement to my verbal explanations.
I love this article! Thanks for validating my decision to not go the Yext route and do my citations manually. It takes a little more time, but it's time well spent, and you can easily catch up on Game of Thrones while you do it.
Ufff... 'a little more time'? I bet you lasted a few entire seasons of G.O.T claiming/correcting on 40+ venues. ;) LOL
Keep in mind that building citations, just like linkbuilding, should not be a one-time process for each customer website. The process should be repeated periodically to check all information is still up to date, visible, and to locate new places to create more citations (your competitors will probably have jumped ahead with new sites, making it easier for you to find more opportunities to add your data).
Spook - That's great advice. This isn't a one time thing. Every business should be continually looking to see what's out there and promoting their business. Additionally It's important to provide your address information on promotional materials offline and in articles. These may serve as unstructured citations, but additionally you're promoting your actual location which should drive sales.
Yes, Roboform works best , not just for Local Citations only , it can help many other link building activities area to design your form according to the need. great job for finding the citations sources!
You've done the "Casey" name proud. I approve.
Thanks Casey!
Great post! Thx for sharing. Question about duplicate local citations. If we can't claim / delete a citation because it has inaccurate info is it ok to create a duplicate with the correct NAP?
Im not too familiar with Robo form, but Google Chrome now can fill in forms automatically. Its very accurate too based on what you have been typing in the past.
Ryan,
Yes I agree. The advantages of Roboform and Last Pass are that you can work on multiple clients and easily switch between them. I also like the custom field options and having everything in one place.
Good Post!
I love this article! Thanks for validating my decision to not go the Yext route and do my citations manually. It takes a little more time, but it's time well spent, and you can easily catch up on Game of Thrones while you do it
[link removed by editor]
Hi, thank you. Learned a lot. Anyone have an idea when Yelp might be coming to South Africa? Using Apple maps some restaurants and vineyards are coming up on the map. However I dont seem to be able to add a local business in South Africa myself. Any advise welcome.
My guess is that Apple Maps is getting their business listing data from Tom Tom. See Andrew Shotland's guide here:
https://applemapsmarketing.com/2012/10/apple-maps-business-data-suppliers-by-country/
Also, you should be able to add your business manually if you follow these steps:
https://applemapsmarketing.com/2012/10/how-to-add-your-business-listing-to-apple-maps/
Great Article for new citation builders! Clear explanation on citation building method. Important factor is NAP which we need to concentrate more on sharing relevant information. Also we need to avoid the duplication in which already our listing got indexed.
I loved this article and its comments! Now I know that those improve our local ranking. Now, I would like to know about everything about this. Please, send me record to my email or facebook!
I'm glad you mentioned that last part about being careful of who you outsource your citation building to, local businesses need to be careful of 'cheap' citation building services. I think this post is the great way to get going on the right track.
i created the business listing on many popular citations sites and my customers are also posting reviews on some of them and as matter of fact i have more reviews than some of my competitors but still the local ranking of my business haven't improved. i have to admit that whitespark indeed is a very useful service, i have used it to find many potential websites for listing my business.
Whenever you're engaged in ethical online marketing it can take some time to see results. Make sure to also analyze your own data to ensure there is not any inconsistent NAP listings out there for your own business. It's also important to continually increase your authority by building high quality backlinks.
Thank you Casey, i also had the same problem now i too will start focusing on building backlinks for my listing. another thing that i have noticied is that yelp is filtering reviews meanwhile some other sites fetch reviews from other citation sites. for instance insiderpages.com is fetching reviews from citysearch.com. however, from what i have heard is that big google favors Yelp! more as compared to other review sites.
Thanks for sharing this informative article . This information helped me lot to learn some new things and It's very interesting and fresh information about new era of link building and citation.
This is a brilliant post, helped me a lot to learn something significant about citations. You included some great resources in to the post and comments which are much beneficial for us. Thanks for sharing.
Casey - Loved this post. I was wondering, can we suggest cities and categories to be added to the Top Citation pages?? I didn't see Williamsburg, Va (Richmond is close, but soooo different), nor did I see Bed and Breakfasts (hotels is there, but soooo different). Thanks!
Hi Lisa,
Those Top Citations pages come from the study we did with David Mihm last year:
https://getlisted.org/resources/local-citations-by-city.aspx
&
https://getlisted.org/resources/local-citations-by-category.aspx
We'll be running the study again this year, and I'll make sure we include Williamsburg VA and Bed and Breakfasts, just for you. :)
some of the directories are not getting indexed. how to get it index. are they counted as backlinks
Superb, Amazing way up for my in house team, it's really glad to find such post here. I hope it must help us to promote in local search.
Very good post specially for local citation. I neglected it and paid price for that. Never outsourced local citation. Believe me !
citation building is very important in seo specially for local seo google get indication that this business or website is popular in its city state and country. it is really very important my first seo process always start from citation building in local business directories. thanks to Casey Meraz for publishing such an amazing information and templates which will make citation building process easy.
Amazing it is really helpful. I was not aware that Roboform can be used for citations.
Casey (and others) It would be a great help to me and other newbies to get a recommendation for how to learn the Steps to properly set-up Local SEO in the first place. Any recommendations for where to learn to do this right?
Hi Mike, we have a good starter post on our site:
https://www.whitespark.ca/blog/post/47-local-seo-bu...
Hope this helps
Hi Casey, my business has a couple of wrinkles that I value your opinion on how to best handle. The first is related to the State real estate law and how the "name" we use must include the Broker's name, as licensed: RE/MAX equity group (which is a national "name" and the "franchise name"), then our Team's name or, personal name. When added up it is a long name to handle, and can also can be easy to state with several variations. (note: I've sometimes had trouble with the All Caps nature of the RE/MAX name).
The second wrinkle is we share the exact same address and suite number with the franchise, and many other fellow real estate agents (we can and do use a different phone number, however). I've started adding a "room number" after the suite as a fix, although I'm open to a better suggestion if you have one.
Thank you!
Naming requirements can be tough sometimes, but to ensure your listing is the least imperfect you should make sure it's consistent across every citation source. People may try to cheat this and do it the wrong way, but in the long run you will be the one who wins out. Don't worry about the caps as it relates to citations. Just try to be 100% consistent with your Google Places account.
I have had the same issue when working with clients who have offices in buildings where offices were not assigned. After speaking with building management and the post office they were OK with adding an identifier for the office such as a room number. As long as this is unique to you it should be fine. I have used the very same technique in competitive areas with success.
I hope that helps!
Thanks, Casey - this does help!
Also, I previously failed to mention that I had established a Place with Google at a different address over 5 years ago; and have moved twice since then. Google also has changed their procedures for local places at least once since then. In any event, that old address still exists as on orphan; and I've had no success in having that record terminated. Know of any silver bullets for such an erroneous Place in Google?
Where is it located? If you want to send me the information I can take a look at it for you. I have had success in getting duplicates and old ones removed.
This is the address: 1319 NE 134th St Suite 101 vancouver wa
It is now a Biscuits Cafe. When I google that address + my name I see that numerous sites I've never heard of show up as listing me at that address - egads!
Any help you can provide with the G Places is greatly appreciated!
Where have you been all my life RoboForm!? This is going to make so many things much easier (not just citations). Great post Casey.
Is it really advisable to not rely on google? Is it the google the top search engine? for me it depends upon the belief of the developer. well, i respect your point of view. this post is very informative. i love reading this, it gives us more idea. thanks.
Ryan, Thanks for your feedback. Most traffic does in fact come from Google. My point there is just to make sure that you are not solely dependent on it. If you gain 100% of your leads and sales through Google, you would be in a very tough position if something ever happened.
Great article! Maybe you could do a "Part 2" that would go into detail about how the process could be simplified / optimized for businesses with locations in multiple cities? Just a thought... ;-)
What if you have multiple locations with different phone numbers?
Steve, this method is setup so you can easily add a location for each one you want to build. Just make a separate profile for each location.
We do this for our current clients now and it's taking up a lot of our time. If I was to charge for this service,A) what would it include and B) how much C) time commitment? We use Teamviewer and do it from the clients desktop. It speeds it . Still takes several hours.
Whitespark is great.
Thanks for the wonderful posting, I like the new ideas to implement our websites in local listings. i was doing it in old way to find relevant listings which bring good amount of traffic but finding list which you mention saves alot of my time. I would also like to thank you for bringing out ROBOFORM as i found it highly useful if somebody trying their hand in local listings. I need some advice, what to do when we get reviews for our listings, should we reply to them or just leave it as it is.
Great Post. Thank you for sharing
Great post, very well written. It's posts like these that are very forward-thinking that many old-school SEOs could benefit from reading!
Thanks for sharing this great information. It's really very beneficial for us. Citations Building is a great way for increase the ranking.
This seems great for those with local businesses. What you suggest for someone that has a business that operates out of multiple states? We're purely online, but we have a 'location'. Would it be beneficial to sign up with a local citations or would we see no benefit really?
RoboForm is good to use but keep it in mind my friends that it's not good for business description. You will get numerical signs (*&%#@) in your description if you will use it for bio content or business description.
I'm glad Casey, You did not add description in your citizen data list. It's very informative post for all of us.
Thank You.
Yousuf
Yousuf, I typically don't use it for the description as a custom field, but I have in the past without issues. I recommend creating unique content for each description if possible.
Hi Casey
Nice post, and thanks for introduce RoboForm, it, s most useful thing, which i need
for local submission.
This blog post in itself can be packaged and sell as a local SEO process. Thanks for sharing!
I was trying to find deep information about Citation and finally i found here. I hop citation will be helpful to get higher ranking for my website locally.
Great contribution Cazey , for I have been very aware of the NAP to enlist other appointments, this is super important.!! The day today was checking duplicates and have reported two on Yelp, how important is it done fast.
I liked the RoboForm. me to lack a bit of order in the information business and its high, and it had a doubt now carry a poyecto of 16 stores from the same company, you can imagine how tedious of discharged in some directories, some know her staff to better manage this information?
Thanks for showing your knowledge.
Casey,
Just when I thought I knew it all you provide some great value-adds with your post! I particularly liked the references to the GetListed.org pages for Top Citations for... I find citation building a bit of a pain like most but once I get in then and get in the routine I can build them like crazy as I have also implemented a similar spreed sheet for easy copy and pasting. The Robotool is interesting as well, nice feed.
Fatso, Yeah the GetListed.org references help a ton by industry and location. I refer to them on a daily basis.
@Casey- Great resource for the Agency or In-house marketing team who are involved in to local projects. Thanks for introducing additional tools to make the process easier :)
No problem. I hope its useful for you and your team.
mmmm...Can somebody tell me how difficult it is to get listed on Yahoo local?
Thank you so much for the resources. Our local citation builder specialist is using several of your suggestions (especially roboform) as I write this. Thanks for providing us with such a complete guide to citation building.
If you are confused about local submission... then i bleeive this is one of the best guide i ahve ever read... PERFECT!
Hi Casey Meraz
Great Post, Thanks for the update about local citation,
NAP information will create confusions when your client business will shift to some other place and You've already done the local citation for old addresses and phone number then of-course you have to start again to change that old information about NAP,
BTW why am I seeing the big difference in your post date and comments date?
Abeerah, Yes that's why it's so important to save the login information for each source. If your business moves and you have to change your address it will at least make the process a little less painless.
You are seeing the difference because the post was posted on the YouMoz blog last Friday and promoted to the main blog today.
It's very interesting and fresh information about new era of link building and citation... Thanks for useful post. I wonder if someone have already experimented how exactly citations occur SERP positions? Thanks!
Thanks for the compliment! I have seen a number of studies written about and I'm working on one right now as well :) I suggest you check out David Mihm's whiteboard Friday from last week. It has some useful information about citations and their importance.
Hi casey,
Really nice source of information regarding Citations. Thanks for sharing.
Hardik
Ohhh the great data mines! I love working with new businesses and helping them submit clean and scrubbed information. It makes everything so much nicer. Sometimes fixing mistakes takes 4x longer. Great article!
I just did a blog on fixing the messes before you start building online citations. Based on that we are going to start offering a new service... Internet Janitorial. We will clean it up so rank has a better meaning....
It's the biggest pain we face... old and inaccurate listings. And Bless who ever mentioned the DEX tracking numbers! They are a curse. I have been having a year long dialog with DEX , and with Mike Blumenthals kind guidence here and there , have seen excelent results when we get rid of those %*%&^ numbers and listings!
Thanks for the hard work in putting this together. My question is, can anyone point me to real research showing how by adding "citations" a site has gained valuable conversions, or even the old fashion word we all like to avoid... R&%kings? Traffic is important, but some traffic from sales people or research teams is not.
Hey Mike, that's a great question. One of the major concerns of adding these listings is that you WILL experience an influx of calls from sales people trying to up-sell you to their sponsored listing. Pushing rankings aside we all need to focus on sales or conversions. These need to be our key metric. Although I am working on a study, I have not released one yet. I can however share with you that calls have been the highest converting for our clients and we have trained them to ask where they were found. Just last month we were able to track 10% of overall conversions back to the referral traffic from these citations. That data is from an attorney client, and even included a case signed from Yelp. Typically Niche directories (For lawyers that could be Lawyers.com, Avvo, etc.) will result in better conversions for professional services, but we see them all around. At the same time there are directories that won't convert very often at all. But if the few minutes to add it ends up paying off by just one sale it would be worth it to add it. Even if it doesn't convert this month it might bring a visitor that converts the next month.
Great question Mike, and a great response Casey!
Tracking those conversions to the citation sources can sometimes be hard (and for the love of Google, don't ever use a call tracking number on your listings). We actually built a free tool to help with this. The Whitespark Offline Conversion Tracker provides a form for the person who answers the phone to complete that asks the simple question: "how did you hear about us?" and then has a few follow up details. On submit, the data goes into our database and we can display it in pretty charts, but even better, we fire it over into Google Analytics for you so you can track the conversions there. Check it out. It's free!
https://www.whitespark.ca/offline-conversion-tracker
Also, sometimes the referral can't be easily traced back to the citation source. Someone is searching around for a service, sees your brand on site X, then sees you again on site Y, then a week later Googles the business by name because they've seen the brand around. The more places you can get your business out there, the better for visibility, branding, conversions, and rankings.
"Business prominence" is unquestionably one of the signals Google uses to rank local businesses, and citations play into that heavily. See Andrew's post on the Maps ranking patent: https://www.localseoguide.com/a-little-light-reading-on-google-maps-ranking-factors/
Great responses! My question of course is still the same and appears unanswered. ( Thank you for the link White Spark , we have used your services and love many of them BTW),
I think it all does depend on the type of business. The local companies that we track, in general are fanatical about tracing a lead to the source. One of the principles we work on is you want your business to be seen every where, (Right?) So in that context citations make sense. As far as driving valuable traffic to a contractor as an example, citations have not been valuable, but only in that context. Example: Yelp does not bring in quality traffic. Note quality.
More and more the answers to where a customer (not a lead) finds a local client is a little scattered... " I saw a truck, and a got a postcard and then saw you our found you online". So, it all may go back to the basic Marketing principles we all know, but at times don't assign a tactic too. A client will need to see you 2-11 times (or whatever) before they buy in certain verticals.
I have been monitoring or "tracking" my clients using my own white label dashboard via LocalReportTool.com.
It's new software that I have thrown around 30 of my clients in and they are all very happy with the reporting they are receiving. The tool tracks monitors citations, Google + listing, reputation, social, and keyword ranking.
Thanks for the Google template and the basics all in one place. It's a good note to save all this - and to make sure if you have anyone else doing the work, they have this. :)
Agree - great follow up to the WBF.
Thanks Casey Really Nice to read your post Thumbs up !
Casey, this is great info on citation building and I have been talking about it with other small business owners and haven't had the chance. I am hesitant to outsource it to someone else. So needed to do. Whitespark is worth exploring. Great post and share!!
Ginnyl, Thanks for the feedback. I hope it goes well for you.
Hay Casey,
Thanks for share very informative article for citation building, citation is very use full Local Business they publish their NAP & other information on different local site and get more local visibility,
I use many citation services provider like Whitespar, Yext and other but that are expensive for listing so I search for more Agency they provide same services & find one very experience and affordable citation service provider, he provide me manually submission & very fast deliver with 35-40% instant approval with detail report if you looking such agency contact www.webdigitalmarketing.com
I love this article. I've done localization projects in the past and it's always nice to see an up-to-date article on building citations. Everything is laid out and the process is actionable. Heck, just following your steps verbatim should improve efficiency in building citations. Although I am big fan of Yext, and like what someone else said, Lastpass is quite awesome and I would give them a shot.
Thanks for the thorough write-upCasey. It's a great update from Rand's post for optimizing citations in Google Local three years ago. Times have changed/improved with local search since then.
Great post dude! I for one love using the Local Citation Finder from WhiteSpark.
Thanks Man!
Yeah its a great resource. Using a tool like that allows you to scale your projects and makes training & management easier.
Aw. Thanks guys! Glad you like the tool.
It is an incredible way of broadcasting business and website in the local business directories with tracking, and also Casey, i think its real name of local business marketing strategy (local business citation).
Thanks for sharing with Us a new way of Online Local Business Marketing..:)
One of the best guides on citation building I've read up to date. Great work Casey!
Thanks!
Roboform is awesome! I never knew it existed... Great post.
Hi Casey. I really enjoyed this post. I particularly liked that you cautioned people about two things: paying a service like Yext to build citations and outsourcing the building of citations. I am currently an in-house SEO and have just spent several months cleaning up citations that were built with inconsistent information by a service that we paid annually to do it. No one outside your business is going to care as much for your business as those who are inside its walls. If at all possible, find the time and resources internally to build your citations. In our case, our business had two addresses. We really only have one "customer" entrance though, and that wasn't the address that was primarily being used. Our business name was also not presented consistently, so there was a lot of correcting to be done.
Thanks for sharing, You've given great advice here.
Dana
Dana,
Thanks for the feedback. I've been in the same boat before!
Great post it is really helpful. I was not aware that roboform can be used for citations.
It’s awesome post, I really got help from your link building reference article. For gr8 seo need lots of quality links which no one ignore this point...
Thanks for Sharing....
Great Stuffs...
Thanks for putting together this awesome post Casey! It's great that the Local community is getting a lot of press here on SEOmoz. Thanks for the template and for reminding me that I need to use roboform more often.
Nice post. Thanks for the helpful template. I appreciate posts like this that give step-by-step instructions. It's nice to see something actionable instead of purely theoretical.
Thanks! I'm always a fan of the actionable data instead of theory.
Thanks for the killer insight to locally optimizing. You guys are a wealth of SEO knowledge, keep on rocking!
I love this spreadsheet! All of our tracking information has been completely disorganized since three different people have been working for some of our clients since I started about a months ago. It's been driving me crazy.
I was about to start designing my own spreadsheet to clean it all up and put all the information in one place but this is absolutely perfect. Thanks! Great windfall for my to do list today.
Great Post Casey. Will be forwarding to our small business / local business clients and groups.
Great! Share the word. The more we empower people to be successful the cleaner the web will be.
Great post! Thank you very much, Casey.
Awesome! This will save you tons of time. I have bookmarked this post so I can begin to setup a process similar. Thanks a lot Casey. #savetimeandmoney
One question: Is it possible to get penalized for having to many "spammy" citations?
I've seen penalties from citation building activity, but it was related to the links that were created, not the citations. It was on a network of sites where when you submitted to one, they would blast that listing to their entire network. Site-wide links showed up on no less than 500 low quality directories overnight. Over 50 thousand indexed pages appeared with those links on them.
So, be careful where you submit to. See this guide on determining citation quality.
great post thank you
Hey Casey! Great post and it was great to meet you in person in Baltimore. Thanks for mentioning the Local Citation Finder!
Are you going to MozCon?
Thanks Daren! Yep I will see you there!
Nice information. This information helped me lot to learn some new things. Every time I found here some new Ideas which helps me to sharp my skill. Thanks a lot. Keep it up.
Thanks For this Article.But How i can Build citation builder to build listings for local demographic businesses.By the way i am trying to learn about this.Waiting a Positive answer.