- \n
- Local citations are listings created for local SEO that include some combination of your business name, address, phone number (NAP), and possibly a link to your website.<\/li>\n
- When doing local citation building, the listings can be structured, unstructured, partial, or full mentions. Whether they include a link or not, they are still valuable. So keep them up to date!<\/li>\n
- Structured listings in major local directories can rank high in Google which can bring potential customers and provide positive ranking signals for your company.<\/li>\n
- Use the Local Citation Finder, Top Citations by Country, Strategy for Building Local Citations, Auditing Your Citation Building Consistency, and Helpful Support Numbers for Top Citation Sources found here to speed up your local citation building.<\/li>\n
- Your Google Business Profile is your most important structured citation.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
![\"Example](\"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Example-Structured-Citation-Google-Business-Profile.png\")
<\/p>\nBuilding Local Citations<\/h2>\n
A citation is any mention of your business on the internet. That can include any combination of your company name, phone number, address, zip or postal code, and website URL.<\/p>\n
Local citation building is a vital component in improving your local search results. The larger directories can provide prominent visibility because they outrank most third party websites.<\/p>\n
They also showcase online reviews and the information collected from them helps search engines understand more ways to feature your company in the search results.<\/p>\n
Local citations come in various forms, for example:<\/p>\n
Partial citations<\/strong><\/p>\n
- \n
- Company name only<\/li>\n
- Company name & phone number<\/li>\n
- Company name, & website<\/li>\n
- Company phone number<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Full citations<\/strong><\/p>\n
- \n
- Company name, phone number, & address<\/li>\n
- Company name, phone number, address, & website<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
The term \u201ccitation\u201d was coined by David Mihm in 2008 in his pivotal post, Local vs Traditional SEO: Why Citation Is the New Link<\/a>.<\/p>\n
A complete local citation should include the company name, address, and phone number, which is referred to as your \u201cNAP\u201d. A citation that does not include all three of these is referred to as a partial citation.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ll sometimes also hear people talk about a NAPW or a UNAP citation as well. The W refers to Website, and the U refers to URL.<\/p>\n
The website links you get from local citation building offer additional value because they provide extra data points that help connect the citation to your company. So some people like to include it in the acronym.<\/p>\n
IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT LINKS WHEN DOING LOCAL CITATION BUILDING:<\/strong><\/p>\n
A local citation does not need to link back to your website to be valuable. The value in a citation is the mention of your business.<\/p>\n
Google identifies mentions and the presence of your NAP data on review sites and other third party sites and lifts your online visibility.<\/p>\n
The more mentions of your local business out on the web, the more prominent your business appears to Google. And this will help with your local search engine rankings.<\/p>\n
The actual links from most business directories are usually nofollowed anyway. This is not to say that links aren\u2019t valuable.<\/p>\n
Links are valuable, and citations that include links are even better than citations that do not include links.<\/p>\n
The point to remember is that a citation does not need to have a link to be valuable to your local search efforts.<\/p>\n
Types of Local Citations<\/h2>\n
Local citation building can be divided into two categories: structured and unstructured citations.<\/p>\n
![\"Structured](\"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Local-organic-results.png\")
<\/p>\nStructured Citations: Listings in Business Directories<\/strong><\/h3>\n
A structured citation is your business information (NAP) on a business listing directory. When you see lists of citation sites, these are pretty much always business listing directories where you can submit your business to build citations.<\/p>\n
Examples of core sites for structured citations include:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Google Business Profile – See How to Optimize Your Google Business Profile for Engagement<\/a><\/li>\n
- Yelp<\/li>\n
- Yellowpages<\/li>\n
- Facebook<\/li>\n
- Superpages<\/li>\n
- MapQuest<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Here\u2019s an example of a structured citation for a restaurant on Yelp:<\/p>\n
![\"Example](\"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Example-Yelp-Local-Citation-The-Walrus-and-the-Carpenter-Seafood.png\")
<\/p>\nUnstructured Citations<\/h3>\n
Generally speaking, an unstructured citation is your business information (NAP) on any other site that\u2019s not specifically a business listing directory.<\/p>\n
Common examples where you\u2019ll find unstructured citations are blogs, magazine\/newspaper sites, wikis, and so on.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s an unstructured citation example for the same restaurant in Wine and Spirits Magazine<\/a>:<\/p>\n
![\"Example](\"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Example-Unstructured-Citation-in-a-review-of-The-Walrus-and-the-Carpenter-Seafood-in-Wine-and-Spirits-Magazine.png\")
<\/p>\nAnd here\u2019s an example of an unstructured citation right here in this blog post!<\/span><\/p>\n
The Walrus and the Carpenter is a fantastic restaurant in Seattle located at 4743 Ballard Ave N.W.. Their phone number is (206) 395-9227. The Whitespark team loves to eat here when we attend MozCon. Awesome seafood. Highly recommended!<\/em><\/p>\n
Note that there is no link. As described above, a mention of the business without a link is still a valuable citation.<\/p>\n
Why Citations Are Important for Local Search Rankings<\/h2>\n
Verification & Trust<\/h3>\n
Citations help search engines, like Google and Bing, verify that your business exists. When multiple credible sources have the same accurate information about your business, it signals to search engines that your company is legitimate.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Listing on the prominent national and local sites helps your business create authority, establish trust, and will improve your business’ ability to rank in local search results.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Prominence<\/h3>\n
Local ranking algorithms used by both Google and Bing factor in citations when it comes to local search rankings.<\/p>\n
![\"2023](\"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/2023-local-search-ranking-factor-group-weighting.png\")
<\/p>\nIn the latest Local Search Ranking Factors survey<\/a>, local search experts rated citations as a key ranking factor making up approximately 7% of the Top 7 factors for both the Local Pack\/Finder and Local Organic.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While top experts in local search agree that citation signals have declined in importance since 2015, citations are still sixth in importance for Local Pack \/ Finder rankings.<\/p>\n
![\"Local](\"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/local-search-ranking-factor-group-change-over-time.png\")
<\/p>\nThe more places your business information appears online, the more prominent it appears to Google. It makes sense.<\/p>\n
If the search engine algorithms see that your business is mentioned on hundreds of websites, compared to competition that is only listed on a few dozen, this can make you seem like a more popular company, and give you a boost in the rankings.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of the most beneficial aspects of structured citations is your ability to garner positive reviews<\/a>. These provide additional information and help people to discover more details about your business<\/p>\n
Not All Citations Are Created Equal<\/h2>\n
So what makes a citation great for a local business? There is huge variation in the value of different local citations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A mention of your business\u2019 name on whitehouse.gov<\/a> is worth far more than your business name, address, and phone number on some spammy web directory that was created solely for low quality link building.<\/p>\n
![\"Example](\"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Example-Citation-on-the-Whitehouse.gov-website.png\")
<\/p>\nSince citations vary in their value, we\u2019ve broken down our top recommended citation and data sources into different classifications by rank of importance. They are:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Core Search Engines<\/li>\n
- Primary Sources<\/li>\n
- Tier 1, Tier 2 , Tier 3, and Tier 4.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Below is a description of each category and some examples for businesses in the USA:<\/span><\/p>\n
Core Search Engines<\/h3>\n
These search engines provide directory listings and are perfect for citation building.<\/p>\n
- \n
- Google<\/li>\n
- Bing<\/li>\n
- Apple Maps<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
Primary Data Sources<\/h3>\n
These are the data aggregators that aggregate and validate data from a number of sources (government, telcos, utilities, web research, etc), and then distribute this business listing data to hundreds of other sites.<\/p>\n
- \n
- Localeze (a service provided by Neustar, now a part of TransUnion)<\/li>\n
- Foursquare (formerly Factual)<\/li>\n
- Data Axle (formerly Infogroup)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
These business data aggregators are an efficient method to build local citations. Data aggregators use systems like RSS technology to push business data to thousands of sources quickly.<\/p>\n
This allows your business information to appear on multiple citation sites much faster than manual submissions.<\/p>\n
![\"Data](\"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Data-Aggregators-2024-Localeze-Foursquare-Neustar-TransUnion-Data-Axle-Infogroup.png\")
<\/p>\nSome directories and local citation sources do not offer direct submission options but instead rely on data from aggregators.<\/p>\n
By using aggregators, you can indirectly create structured citations on these platforms.<\/p>\n
In addition, new local directories and niche sites can access this data to populate new third party websites. When they pull in information from local businesses, yours will be included.<\/p>\n
Tier 1<\/h3>\n
These sites are prominent on Google and are frequently used by people to find local businesses. In addition to generic sites that are used nationally, this tier also includes city\/state and industry\/niche citations that add significant value to your citation profile.<\/p>\n
Generic<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n
- \n
- Yelp<\/li>\n
- Facebook<\/li>\n
- Yellowpages<\/li>\n
- BBB<\/li>\n
- Superpages<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
Hyper-Local Citations in Your Business Location<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n
- \n
- Chicago Tribune\u00a0<\/li>\n
- Denverite<\/li>\n
- LA Times<\/li>\n
- Local chamber of commerce<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
Industry Specific Directories & Relevant Business Directories in Your Niche <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n
- \n
- Lawyers.com<\/li>\n
- Avvo.com<\/li>\n
- Healthgrades.com<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
Tier 2<\/h3>\n
These are business listing sites that have some prominence on Google, decent domain authority, but may be lesser known.<\/p>\n
- \n
- Yellowbook<\/li>\n
- Merchant Circle<\/li>\n
- HotFrog<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
Tier 3<\/h3>\n
Even lesser known and lesser frequented business listing sites.<\/p>\n
- \n
- Yellowise<\/li>\n
- MyLocalServices<\/li>\n
- B2BYellowPages<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
Tier 4<\/h3>\n
Sites with low domain authority that you may not know exist. Examples:<\/p>\n
- \n
- IGotBiz.com<\/li>\n
- Fyple.com<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
There are many factors that determine citation quality. For further advice on sorting the gold from the sand, take a look at this post on determining citation quality.<\/p>\n
Auditing Your Citation Building Consistency<\/h2>\n
If you\u2019ve read any introductory posts about local SEO, you\u2019ve likely heard about how important citation consistency is.<\/p>\n
Making sure your listings have the correct name, address, and phone number on the most important sites in the local search ecosystem<\/a> IS<\/strong> important.<\/p>\n
You want to ensure that you have one, and only one, accurate and complete listing on each of the most important sites.<\/p>\n
With that said, some people worry about citation consistency more than necessary.<\/p>\n
- Google Business Profile – See How to Optimize Your Google Business Profile for Engagement<\/a><\/li>\n