Business Citations Are Any Mention Of Your Business Name And Primary Contact Information On Other Webpages.
This primary data is often referred to as NAP and consists of your business name, address, and phone number (NAP - you get the picture).
Examples of a business citation are your online Yellow-Pages directory listing, or a business listing on your local Chamber of Commerce website. Your social media sites also have references of your business NAP, and those are also citations.
SOUNDS SIMPLE ENOUGH, BUT WE HAVE FOUND THAT 70% OF ALL BUSINESSES HAVE CITATION ERRORS THAT IMPACT ONLINE LOCAL VISIBILITY
These citations are important for local marketing because they are a verification element search engines use to validate the facts about your business and exactly where it’s located. The more qualified the data search engines have about your business, the more they will trust your business data. Likewise, when search engines see the continuity of not just your business NAP, but also of your keyword usage and descriptive wording throughout the internet – that trust can grow exponentially. It is at this tipping point that citation building starts to really pay off.
Top 4 Tips For Local Citation Building:
- Be 100% consistent with the wording of your business name
- Use your local phone number as the primary contact. Use a toll-free (if you have one) secondary. When only one selection is available, stick with the local.
- Never (stress never) use a call tracking # for any local internet marketing (never)
- Make sure to use your complete address including suite or unit number if it applies [verify here]
In addition to these 4 tips, the trick to making citation building (AKA: link building) work for your business is to be linking up with trusted citation sources and to be in a state of constant citation-building. The weekend warrior approach will not work as search engines are tracking your activity/inactivity when it comes to link building. Activity pays dividends.
Our advice – keep building those business citations, make sure your NAP is bullseye consistent, only link with trusted resources, and stay true to these 4 tips for citation building.
