Citations

How many quality on-line citations does your business have?

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It’s a question not many business owners can quickly answer. But if they want to get ranked high on internet search engines they should be able to do this.  

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When other websites list your business, it’s called a citation. Why are citations important? Citations play a very important part in establishing and enhancing the on-line Relevance, Authenticity and Authority for your business and your website. Implementing and maintaining a citation building strategy is important for successfully marketing your business. 

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When it comes to building your internet citations, consistently growing a quality list of citations is more important than the overall quantity of your citations. Note how we emphasize the importance of “quality” vs. “quantity”. It’s a strategy that will serve you well in the long run. 

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So how do you identify quality internet sites to list your business and continually build quality citations? 

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Here’s a list of 20 high-quality internet sites to get your business citation building efforts moving in the right direction:

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1. Google Places for Business

2. BING Places for Business

3. Yahoo Small Business Listings

4. Facebook

5. Twitter

6. Linked-In

7. Merchant Circle

8. Manta

9. MapQuest

10. Hotfrog

11. YP.com

12. Local.com 

13. Yelp

14. Localeze

15. BBB.org (Better Business Bureau)

16. Foursquare.com

17. Superpages.com

18. ChamberofCommerce.com

19. Whitepages.com

20. Citysearch.com

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There are many, many more opportunities to build citations on the internet. In fact, the number of potential sites in which to build your citations is constantly changing. Sites get deleted and added all the time. A good strategy and practice is to routinely identify and add new citations for your business monthly. 

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When you create listings on the various internet directory sites, it’s very important not to have duplicate listings. If you accidentally create a duplicate listing or discover there is a duplicate listing on a particular directory site, delete the duplicate. 

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It’s also very important to make sure your business name, address and telephone number (NAP) match exactly with what’s on your website. As outlined in the previous chapter, it’s critical that your NAP remain consistent throughout the internet.      

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Correctly building citations on the internet is a time consuming process. It’s important to maximize each of your listings on each directory site. That means filling out all the fields, uploading photos and going through a verifications process. Utilize what each listing has to offer and don’t forget to link your listing to your website! This creates a quality in-bound link. When you do link your citation to your website, try to make it a deep link to an internal page of your website vs. linking to the Home Page of your website. For example, if your website has a Location Page (and it should), link your citation to that page instead of your Home Page.   

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All the time you spend on building citations will be rewarded with higher visibility on the internet, more visitors to your website and more leads to convert into sales. 

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This is an Ingredient most businesses don’t take full advantage of and one that can set you apart from your competition. Remember when creating citations, focus on the quality of your citations. It’s important to have citations that are complete as compared to a bunch of citations that are incomplete. 

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Contact us to learn more about citations and how we can help you build a solid citation portfolio.