What are Citations and why are they important?
Citations began in 2003 when the search engines began listing local information such as addresses and business hours. Similarly to how you would cite your sources at the end of a school English paper, you can cite your business to better your SEO. This created local vs traditional SEO, traditional targets a broader audience than local because it does not use location as its biggest factor. Location based seo is important because it generates higher conversion rates and more foot traffic, directly suggesting customers in your area to you.
Other benefits include enhanced trust, less advertising costs, and creating a community/loyal customers. Websites also known as data aggregators allow you to put your NAP or name, address, and phone number on their website for free. Strongly resembles a digital phone book for businesses. While you can place your NAP on almost any data aggregator website for free it is important that they are trustworthy sites. It does not benefit you to put your information in a place no one will check. Sites such as yelp, foursquare, and superpages are safe and popular, which will benefit you to have your citations on it. Google uses the information from sites such as listed to verify the legitimacy of your website, ultimately boosting visibility and local search rankings. Some advice when creating citations is to think of it like a video game, the highest score wins. Citations are ranked from 1-100, this is known as authority level. The higher authority level you can collect across multiple websites, Google’s trust for you will grow exponentially. A general rule is that anything above 80 is a good score. Here are 4 tips to citations: Claim and optimize your Google business profile, by going to Google business Website. This creates something similar to a knowledge card, so when someone googles your site all your information (store hours, address, etc) will be front and center. Use local and niche sites for your citations, they are easier to rank for. Consider using a citation tracking tool to help keep them organized and know your authority levels. Encourage customers to leave reviews, reviews are the number one way Google knows to trust you. Offer a discount or free sample product in return for a google review! As the world continues to become more and more digital it’s important to know all the ins and outs so your business can thrive!
I hope you learned something new from today’s blog post. Leave a comment down below if you have any other tips!