Local SEO Spring Cleaning: Tidying Up Your Citations
Your business depends on citations to help local customers find you. We’ve talked about the importance of Google My Business listings — but that’s just the first step towards local SEO success. Without properly maintained and updated citations, your business can easily fall behind and lose valuable conversions to your competition.
What Are Citations and Why Do They Matter to Local Businesses?
Local citations are mentions of your company on the Web; most commonly they include your NAP (Name, Address and Phone Number). Citations may also include address, zip or postal code, website address and more. As Google, Yelp, Facebook and others have become popular platforms for researching local businesses, citations have quickly become the go-to resource for local customers. The accessibility, accuracy, and consistency of this information play an important role in helping customers find local businesses on those sites and also impacts local search rankings. Here are some tips to help you stay ahead of the local SEO game by updating your business’ online citations.
Think Quality Over Quantity
Whether your business is local, regional or national, the quality—not the quantity—of your citations is what matters to both consumers and search engines. Yes, a larger number of great citations will earn you popularity with search engines, but if the quality is poor, your efforts will be all for naught. The best part about quality citations is that you control the information in them. Aside from accurate general information on your business, you also want to ensure that the sites promoting your citations are sites that are actually going to deliver customers. Once you’ve taken the time to discover the sites where your business is cited, ask yourself two questions:
- Does the site relate to my industry?
- Is the site reputable?
In some cases, the answers can be a judgment call. If you’re stumped, we do know a great digital marketing team that can help you call the right shots.
Perform a Citation Analysis
Luckily, you don’t have to spend hours digging through search engines and directories to find sites that reference your business—there are several free tools to help you through the process. For example, Moz Local allows you to look into your citations by merely typing in the name and zip code of your business. Carrying out your own citation analysis is a smart way to save time and prevent duplicate business listings that will damage your SEO’s progress.
Claim, Create and Clean Up Your Listings
Once you have an idea of where your citations stand online, you can start claiming, creating, and cleaning up your citations in order to maximize their effect on your business. If you find that your business is missing from a popular listings page, swoop in and add it! If you have incomplete listings, address those, too—your business information should be correct and completely filled out. Importantly, your NAP (Name, Address and Phone) should be exactly the same wherever it is found online. This will all take some time, but with quality and up-to-date citations, we can guarantee that the juice is worth the squeeze.
Let Your Citations Benefit Your Business With Dallas SEO Dogs
Accurate and up-to-date citations are SEO necessities that can easily fall below business owners’ radars as they focus on gaining local customers. Let the digital marketing gurus at Dallas SEO Dogs keep a watchful eye on your listings. Our SEO professionals know how to ensure that the right information about your business is on display in SERPs and more. If you know that your business could use a helping hand with citations and other digital marketing services, please contact us using the form below. We’d love to learn more about your business and help you gain more local customers!
