What Are Local Citations?

How many of you know that one of the important Google ranking factors is citations?

If you don’t include citations no matter how strong your link profile is all of your SEO efforts will be ended up in vain.

A local internet business’s accurate citation might improve your position because local search engine rankings are one of the major ranking elements in local SEO.

The goal of local citation building is to create a website listing that has all the necessary information on any of the local directories and platforms that are currently available.

However, as you will learn in this blog, there are still a lot of areas to explore when it comes to creating citations for local SEO.

Let’s get started

What are Local Citations?

It is the online listing of a local business’s name, address, and phone number. It is also known by the name of “NAP” info, which assists users search for local businesses and also influence local SEO rankings.

In order to increase search engine exposure and NAP consistency, local citations are typically created and maintained by business owners or SEO professionals.

What are the types of Local Citations?

There are two types of citations:

  • Structured Citations

It comprises of name, address and phone number (NAP) it is the common order in which you will see an information related to the business on websites and business directories. The best examples of this is social media profiles and directory listings.

  • Unstructured citations

Contextual mentions of a company are this kind of citation. They generally pop-up in blog posts, forum posts, or due to a result of press mentions.

How to build local citations?

There is no denying in the fact that local citations will hugely be benefitted from structured and unstructured citations. Avoid its overuse when it comes to quantity Instead you should focus on quality and authenticity and listing your business on every online directory possible.

  • Data Aggregators

In simple words, data aggregators collects information on businesses and then share that information to other sites.

Here are few examples of popular data aggregators

    • Four square
    • Infogroup
    • Factual
  • Local directories

According to Google consumer study “Local searchers are more likely to take action, visit nearby businesses more frequently per day, and complete transactions than consumers who conduct non-local searches.”

Due to which it become really important for you to get your business listed in local online directories.

Eventually you will come across directories that will generate their listings as per information received from data aggregators.

Keep an eye on your local directories in order to check if a listing already exists for your firm and ensure the information is precise.

If a listing doesn’t exist for your business then you can also submit new one.

  • Social media

Creating a business account on social media will not only maximize your customer engagement but also gives a chance for citations.

According to former Googler Matt Cutt said:

“Facebook and Twitter pages are treated just similar to any other pages in our web index, that’s why if anything happens on Twitter or on Facebook and we are able to crawl it then we can return that in our search results.”

Thus, make sure to have more than one social media account setup for your business and ensure your address, email address, phone number and website.

  • Building your local citation profile

According to Google consumer study 18% of local smartphone searches led to a purchase within single day.

Building a strong citation profile for your business is one of the best and efficient way for your local SEO optimization.

Do you know how to execute citation as a part of your digital marketing strategy?

If not then feel free get in touch with the top digital marketing company Stellar Digital offering comprehensive digital marketing services.

Conclusion

Citation is very important for SEO and if you want to utilize it to their fullest potential then our advice is to take assistance of the best digital marketing company in Gurgaon that provides effective SEO services. Stellar Digital the best digital marketing company could be the right choice for you. Get in touch with us by shooting us at contact@stellardigital.in