Online Audit for Small Business Owners Part 3 — Local Citations

Today we’re going to talk about the fun stuff. Citations. What is a citation? It’s basically an online reference to your business. That can include company name, address, phone, and even operating time. Why is this fun? Because I said so.

Clients never really understand how they are perceived on the Internet until something crappy (like a host of critical reviews) hits their peripheral vision. There’s more to citations than your company’s name, address and phone number. Citations are everywhere, or at least should be.

Citations and Their Impact On Rankings.

We all hear about back links being an essential component of search engine optimization. Citations are also crucial for local search engine ranking results. Local businesses who are aware of this spend a lot of time and energy managing their citations to ensure data accuracy. Citations show up on other websites, web directories, social platforms and mobile apps.

For local search ranking, citations are the fourth most important element in your SEO tool bag. Some citations will appear without the knowledge or input of the local business. Many of these listings are created from an automated aggregation.

The algorithms still find them and associate this information with the business. Since some of this information may be outdated, it can confuse or cause conflicts in the algorithm results. There are basically three areas where local citations are important to search engine spiders.

The most common types of local citations are found on local business data platforms. Google My Business, Yelp, Infogroup, and Bing Places are the most widely recognized. These are usually the top tier that auditors will look at when they scan the businesses’ online profile.

The next tier would be industry-specific local citations. These are usually local directories; business-related sites such as chambers of commerce or professional associations. Local directory sites that promote a specific business niche are very popular because they combine geographic and industry-specific profiles.

Another tier of citations that are supplementary will be maps, databases, news sites and blogs. Small businesses that regularly contribute to press release sites or local news outlets can benefit from these tier-3 citations. Many of these citations are developed manually while others are automatic.

Local citations can bring traffic to a local business website. It can also extend their brand awareness. By now, we’re all aware of how a website such as Yelp can be both positive or negative in its impact on local business. There are other aspects of negative citations than just a bad Yelp review.

Identifying Bad Citations.

Bing, Yahoo and Google use business NAP in their AI decisions around geo-targeted searches. NAP stands for name, address, phone number. It’s a critical part of ranking in local organic search results. The search engines use their algorithms to cross reference a business NAP information from a variety of websites.

After all, a fake business will not have consistent NAP information everywhere on the Internet. A bogus business may only have taken the time to set up references on Google. Search engine AI’s cross reference or against a wide variety of sources. They would discount a business with very limited or inconsistent information across the web.

This is one reason it’s important to monitor your NAP for consistency. When your company changes for numbers or move to new address excitation audit can help to fix inconsistencies. Any citation that contains different or inconsistent NAP should be considered a bad citation.

How to Correct Bad Citations.

If you’re going to make in changes manually, keep a spreadsheet handy. There are online tools that can find your citations across the Internet and collect them for you in a CSV file. This gives you an opportunity to visit the link leading to your profile. This should allow you to edit your listing or send a message to the website.

Once you’ve identified all the nap variations of the business, identify the bad ones. A separate tab of your spreadsheet. Identify any variations in the inconsistencies. Now identify the ones that can be fixed without having to contact the website.

Sites like Bing Places, Yelp and Google My Business are very easy to edit. Many local business directories offer the option of signing in and creating an account just for editing. Once you’ve gone through and make the edits, it’s time to move on to notifying the other webmasters.

It’s a bit more challenging to work on the more obscure sites such as local directories and blogs. Be sure to follow up on emails to sites that don’t allow you to make changes. Some webmasters will require proof of your identity before making adjustments to listings.

To be sure, changing bad citations can be tedious. There are services that will take care of this issue for you. These services will also ensure that you have listings in all the important places on the web. Many local SEO agencies will offer packages that include updates and corrections.

Local Citation Builder Apps.

There might be a temptation to do this yourself. That’s not a problem if it actually gets done. We all have good intentions and it’s not unusual to move things like this down the priority list as we get busy. There are also apps available for tracking and monitoring local citations.

These apps are usually low cost and handle between 50 and 300 citations. They all handle the first-tier sites, conduct audits, submit NAP, along with brief descriptions and index your submissions. These apps are also perfect for annual audits.

If you can’t bother to do this yourself, it’s probably more prudent to hire someone who does this for a living to just get it done. If you are getting an audit from an agency, they will have a range of proposals that include fixing citations as well as creating them for you. You will save yourself a lot of headaches now and in the future with a small investment.

Of course, I was joking when I called building citations fun stuff. Unfortunately, this is the nuts and bolts online activity that’s needed for online success. Local search traffic is very important in the grand scheme of online marketing.

If you’re going to thrive in this environment, you’ll need to optimize your citations, improve your on-page SEO, and provide relevant content to promote your brand. Although it might seem a bit complicated, it can be done successfully, regardless of the size of your business. Keep in mind that the goal of all this work, is to bring in prospects that convert to customers.