What are the types of Local Citation For Your Local Business?

What is Local Citations

If you're not sure what local citations are, don't worry - you've probably encountered them while searching for a new service provider, brand, or business.

For example, a few weeks ago my friend came into town and wanted to take me out to lunch. Since she wasn't familiar with the area, my sister used Google to search for a restaurant we'd both like. After scrolling through Google, she found a restaurant called Sagar Ratna that had very good reviews.

Types of Local Citations

There are several types of citations for local SEO that can benefit your business. Let's take a look at what they're:

Structured citations

A structured citation involves listing your business's name, address, and phone number in relevant business directories or on third-party websites like Yelp or Yellow Pages. These third-party websites already have huge databases of reliable information. For these reasons, search engines like Google trust them.

It's helpful to have local citations in directories that are relevant to your industry. For more general directories like the Yellow Pages, make sure your business is listed in the appropriate category.

This makes it easier for Google to understand the services your business offers and connect you with your target audience.

Unstructured Citations

Unstructured citations also mention important information about your business, but unlike structured citations, the information isn't grouped together. These types of citations are usually found on websites or apps that aren't specifically designed as directories or business listings.

Common forms of unstructured local citations are online news articles, reviews, or blog posts that mention your business.

There is data to support the notion that unstructured citations, like online reviews, can be beneficial to businesses. According to a survey by Brightlocal, 77% of consumers in 2021 "always" or "regularly" read online reviews when searching for local businesses. This is up from 63% in 2020.

Google showed the address of Connaught Place, so we knew it was in a busy part of town and could be very crowded on the afternoon we wanted to visit. Fortunately, the restaurant's phone number was provided, so my friend called and reserved a table. In this scenario, the address and phone number of the restaurant were the local citations - and made our visit easy and organized.

Local mentions are any online mentions of a business's name, address and phone number (NAP). These citations can be found in business directories, on websites, and in apps like Google and the Yellow Pages. Not only do they help local businesses be found online, citations for local SEO can also improve rankings in local search engines.

Citations can help with local search engine optimization because they allow search engines to verify the legitimacy of your business. When the same name, address, and contact information for your brand is readily available throughout the Internet, search engines can trust that your business exists and is offering its services truthfully.

Advantages of Local Citations

Local online searches have proven to be a significant factor in a business's success. According to BrightLocal's 2022 Consumer Reviews Survey, 99% of consumers have used online searches to find local businesses in the past year. In the same survey, 78% of consumers said they search for local businesses online more than once a week.

How to build citations for local SEO in 4 steps

If you want to build local citations for your business, you should follow these simple steps:

1. Use data aggregators.

There are many online business directories that rely on business owners submitting their NAP directly to the website to be included. Business owners and marketers simply don't have the time to submit their company's NAP to thousands of websites. Fortunately, there is an easy way around this: Data aggregators.

Data aggregators are companies that collect information, including company NAPs, and submit it to hundreds of websites, saving you time and effort.

According to CitationsCheck, the four most popular data aggregators currently are Foursquare, Localeze, Factual, and Infogroup.

To improve your citations for local search engine optimization, simply search for your business on these sites to see if it's already listed there. If you find your business, submit it. If your business isn't already on the site and you have made sure there are no duplicates, submit your listing and correct address NAP to the site.

2. Submit your NAP to the major websites.

The next step is to submit your NAP to major websites such as Yellow Pages, Facebook, Yelp, Apple Maps, Yahoo Local and Bing Places. Before submitting your NAP to these sites, make sure they're relevant to your business and worth the time and effort. You can do this by visiting the sites yourself and seeing what types of businesses are listed in the directories.

3. Post your NAP on industry-specific and local websites.

After submitting your information to the major sites, you should also submit it to directories that are tailored to your industry. If you're a contractor you should post your information on Angi, if you're a real estate agent you should be on realtor.com, if you're a hotel your information should be on TripAdvisor.

You should also be on hyperlocal directories such as the local chamber of commerce or other local business association websites.

4. Strive for unstructured local citations.

Unstructured citations for local SEO come in the form of blog posts, reviews, and articles about your business. Building unstructured local citations is a little more difficult than building structured local citations because you need someone who cares enough about your business to write about it. But don't worry, it's far from impossible.

One way to find unstructured citations is to Google search for supplier pages. Many companies have supplier pages that link to the companies that supply them or to companies that supply them. Simply create a list of suppliers and do a site search to see if your company is already mentioned on their website.

Another resource is HARO (Help A Reporter Out). HARO matches journalists with sources for news stories. It's a free tool that sends you daily email alerts from journalists. If you answer the journalists' questions or provide a quote, you and your company are usually quoted in their next article.

Local citations help your business gain visibility online, increase search engine rankings and improve customer discovery. Whether you create unstructured or structured local citations, you need to make sure that your company's name, address, and phone number are accurate and identical across all platforms.