Effect of Citations on Local Business Ranking

Let me introduce what is citation? Citation is one of the important strategies in SEO which helps to boost your business ranking within local search. The meaning of citation is to mention your Business name and address on other websites, wherein there is no link to your website. An example of a citation is online yellow pages directory, where your business information is listed, but not linked to. It is important to consider that when you start building a citation the consistency should remain absolute. Otherwise, it will affect your business ranking for sure. Google only considers those citations whose information is correct and complete. It is always beneficial to create more citations, so Google as well as other search engines can be sure that your business is legal.

You might be having a question regarding the above statement on how Google and other search engines consider the legitimacy of your business. Well, many businesses use illegal ways to list their fictitious business information to gain local listings even though they do not physically exist. To avoid this kind of situation, Google and other search engines consider and give higher rankings to those businesses whose citations are more. Citations increase the visibility of your business which is helpful for visitors to easily find out online.

Citation provides a degree of certainty about your business contact information to the search engines. It is necessary to direct people to your website, which is a “place” where your business can be referred to online. Citations can also help search engines to understand, who you are and how successful you are in the market. If your business information is listed in neighborhood business directory the search engine will have a better idea of what search terms should apply to your company.

Useful Citation Strategies:-

Here you can get the idea about various citation strategies, which can be implemented to improve your Local SEO:

• Enlist Your Business Listing:- If you want to make your business more popular and worldwide, than you have to provide accurate information regarding your business address, name and phone number, which is one of the most important local SEO ranking factor. Find a good citation site where you have not listed your business information, sign up and add your first listing.

• Check your competitor’s citations:- As we all know that competition is very much high among businesses for getting quick success, so you have to be updated with unique information. You must have the information about your competitor’s citations to lead your business in a better way. You should check all the business directories where you forget to list out your business details.

• Make sure that Business details are listed exactly the same in each citation:- Accuracy is necessary while you are listing your business information like Name, Address and Phone number in business directories, because if you provide a wrong information about your business knowingly or unknowingly, it affects your business negatively and your business ranking will go down.

• Arrange the local events:- You can arrange some events like industrial conferences, expos or shows. You can check any local event’s site in which if you find any link of sponsors and exhibitors on their site, you can invest as a sponsor or an exhibitor of event. In addition to that, you can also get your links on their site. You can surely get huge traffic for your business by doing this.

• Submit your business details in article directory:- It is beneficial to submit the article with your business name and address to get local citations. It is also one of the best strategies to submit unique articles to the directory which is definitely helpful to get number of citations through the article directories.

Benefits of Local Citation:-

• Validation:- Validation is the process of checking the business details which you listed in business directories, whether it is fake or real. Therefore, after validation, Google’s algorithm considers to take the website into account. It is not like that you put your website and say that I am perfect or expert in a particular niche, citations tells the search engines that the company is physically existing and this is the best way to gain organic traffic to your business.

• Community Impact’s the Most:- It is beneficial for your business to become a part of well known online business community, which helps to improve local search engine ranking. Google appreciates those businesses which are validated by Google which means the business is real and not fake.

• Great for Smaller Business:- There are many small businesses which do not have their website. In this case, citation is very useful for small businesses to generate trust, mostly to gain success in traditional market.

• The More Consistency you have, the more you gain:- It is necessary to be consistent online, because if you maintain consistency Google will consider it better and also appreciate your business, which is helpful to get desired local search ranking and worldwide popularity.

I hope the above information on Citations will help you easily understand the importance of citations for your business.