citations and their importance in local seo

How to Improve Local SEO with Local Citations

The number of local citations affects local SEO success. So, it would be better to get as many local citations as possible. If your business has a lot of local citations, then this means that it’s prevalent. And, of course, Google will rank your business high in local search. If this happens, the search engine will drive a lot of customers to your business. That’s why you should use any opportunity to get local citations for your local business. 

It’s also important to note that the quality of local citations means a lot for the SEO success of your local business. The quality of local citations depends significantly on the quality of platforms where you choose to get local citations. 

It’s important to know that Google continuously analyzes the quality of these platforms carefully. Local citations built on high-quality platforms have a powerful effect on the local SEO of your business.

The accuracy of business data is another essential factor. Search engines such as Google and others analyze the data about local businesses. 

If the data is accurate, you will be able to gain search engine trust. As a result, your business will get a better chance to achieve higher rankings for local keywords.     

When building local citations, you always need to pay close attention to this critical aspect. In other words, you have to provide accurate information about your local business during the citation building process. Make sure that all the information that you’ve provided about your local business is correct. 

Nevertheless, there are situations when a local business relocates and changes its address. If this happens, you will have to make changes and provide the correct company’s address on all local citations that you’ve built. Update your local sources as soon as possible when such a need arises. 

How to Use Local Citations to Affect Client’s Decisions

Building local citations is not only about improving local SEO. When creating local citations, you should aim to accomplish some other goals. The truth is that local citations affect clients’ decisions about your local business. It’s also important to note that local sources help business owners turn more prospects into actual customers. 

Your job is to make it easy for clients to find your local business. On the other hand, prospects will find it difficult to contact you if your business data are inaccurate. In this case, you’ll lose your clients, and your company will lose its revenue. Keep in mind that erroneous local citations have a negative impact on the reputation of your local business as well. 

And of course, you should do your best to prevent these kinds of things from happening. That’s why you have to provide consumers with accurate information about your local business. Ensure that local citations offer your clients everything needed to get in touch with you easily and quickly.     

Local Citations Drive Targeted Traffic to a Website

To put it simply, building local citations is all about spreading the information about your local business on the web. And, of course, you will be able to attract high amounts of targeted traffic to your website if you choose to promote your local business this way. Lastly, you have to turn your site’s users into happy customers.    

Local Citations Allow Businesses to Improve their Reputation 

The vast majority of clients would be happy to leave a positive review about your business on Google Maps and review sites such as Yelp. These reviews will allow you to improve the reputation of your business. 

As you can see, building local citations helps improve your local business in several different ways. Building local citations delivers multiple significant benefits to local businesses. These include:

• Higher rankings in local search
• Better conversions
• Improved business reputation 
• Increase in website traffic
• More customers

All of this will boost the success of your local business. Your customer base will grow with local citations, and your local business will take it to the next level—no matter what type of products or services your local business offers. Building local sources makes it possible for you to grow any kind of a local business and achieve great success. 

What Type of Local Citations Do You Need to Improve Your Local SEO?

As we have already mentioned, building high-quality local citations needs to be the number one priority for a regional SEO strategy. This level of quality is something that should be taken very seriously. 

You have to be very selective when picking platforms to build citations for a local business.   

There are a lot of online platforms where you can build local citations for your local business. However, you have to pick the media related to the areas where your local business operates. It’s possible to build different types of local citations.     

There are plenty of online data online platforms that local businesses can use to build citations. One of our favourites is Alignable; we highly recommend setting that up. Such online platforms have been created to collect data about businesses and generate referrals.

If you try to improve local SEO, it would be better to build citations from local online platforms. Google My Business and YP.ca are good examples of business data online platforms that you can use for making local citations. Maybe even try hitting up your local Chamber of Commerce?

Local citations from business listings. 

It makes a lot of sense to add a local business to popular online listings. It’s an effective link-building technique that works. And, of course, it would be better to give a preference to local business listings. This way, you can build a lot of high-quality local citations. 

Local citations from review sites. 

There are a lot of websites where consumers can leave reviews about various businesses. If you add your website to review sites, you’ll be able to get many local citations for your business. Such sources will positively affect your local search rankings. 

Local citations from social media sites. 

It’s a great idea to use social media sites for building local citations. It’s worth noting that citations made on Facebook work very well for local SEO. 

Local citations from industry-related online platforms. 

Online directories, which are related to your industry, are suitable for building citations. Also, it would help to create local citations on online industry platforms, which are relevant to the areas where you do business and sell your products or services. 

Local citations from relevant sites. It’s possible to build local citations on different types of sites, which are relevant to your business. First of all, you need to find local blogs, forums, news sites and other types of sites that are relevant to your industry. After that, you should mention your local business on these sites. So, you’ll be able to get a lot of additional local citations for your business this way. 

Bottom Line About Citations

Local citations are built for various purposes. Of course, the main goal of local citations is to improve local SEO. Without a doubt, you will improve your local search engine rankings if you build many sources for your local business.

Improved local search engine rankings will boost sales for your local business.    

Additionally, local citations will have an impact on business reputation and client behaviour. Local citations help businesses gain customer trust.       

The good news is that the process of building local citations can be automated. That means that businesses will be able to get local citations easily and quickly. There are semi-automated and fully automated methods of building local citations, but they can be costly. 

However, some local citations have to be built manually. In this case, you have to register on sites, fill all the necessary forms and submit business data manually. 

It goes without saying that local citations are a good investment in your local business. But most importantly, you should always do your best to get the most out of building local citations. In this case, local SEO will provide your business with the best possible results.

If you need a hand, feel free to reach out. Otherwise, best of luck with rocking that local SEO. From our 10+ years of experience, it is a worthwhile investment of your time.