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Local SEO Citations - Where, When, Why, How
To business owners in 2024, local SEO citations are the new yellow pages.
Is this strategy all you need to make your business visible? Of course not. Is it 100% essential for your business to succeed? Absolutely.
If you’ve been following SEO news, you’ll also want to know if citations still work after Google’s core update in March 2024.
And if you’re new to SEO, a solid business citation example should help you get a better idea of what you need to do.
Search the post below to find the answers to your questions – I’m going to answer them all.
What are Local SEO Citations?
Local SEO citations are nothing more than getting your business listed in local business directories.
Sounds simple, right? But have you ever tried doing this?
It means a massive amount of outreach. It means time you could be spending doing the things you’re good at.
But it’s essential. Every local citation makes your business slightly more valid by search engines’ standards – and so you’ll appear slightly higher in your local search rankings.
For your company – where the difference between position #3 and position #4 is worth dozens of clicks – local SEO citations are absolutely mandatory.
Why do local businesses need citations?
Building citations is one of the fundamentals of local SEO.
If you’re not familiar – local SEO is what helps customers find your business and place orders.
If you’re very, very good at what you do, and you’re in a niche industry, there’s a chance you don’t need local SEO. Maybe customers just come to you anyway.
Does this happen to you?
If not, then you need to market your business. Digital marketing is where you need to start, because a huge proportion of potential customers search online when looking for local businesses.
And citations are the start of that strategy.
Are citations a good SEO strategy?
Do citations help local SEO? Short answer: yes.
To create a successful SEO citation, you’ll need to include:
Your business information (name, address, and phone number)
A concise description of your services
Photos/videos of your business (where possible)
A do-follow link to your website (where possible)
If you have questions about whether local citation building is worth it in 2024, ask yourself:
Would you be comfortable without these business listings?
Would you feel like you were doing everything you could to put get your business online and on the map?
I didn’t think so.
So let’s explore what separates a good citation from a bad one.
Features of Local Citations: NAP Data
Local citations focus on 3 features, broadly called NAP information. This stands for name, address, and phone number.
The best SEO citations include more than this – they’ll be based on what top citation sites allow rather than trying to force information into online business directories that don’t allow for certain types of information.
Here’s a quick layout of what makes structured citations successful.
Name
Your business’s name should always be included – and make sure you keep it consistent. Letter case, punctuation, and suffixes (e.g. Ltd or Inc) should be consistent throughout citation sites.
Address
Including your business’s address is essential for local SEO citations. It should be laid out as plainly as possible so that data aggregators pull the entire address accurately when they crawl the site.
Phone Number
Who uses a phone number to contact a business?
You do. When you need their services and you realize that an email could take 3-5 business days to hear back from.
Businesses that benefit massively from including a phone number include:
Contractors (roofers, plumbers, electricians, etc.)
Professional services (legal services, accountants, etc.)
Healthcare organizations
Utility services
You can also include an email address as part of your business information, but it’s advisable to prioritize the phone number.
If someone wants to contact you immediately, they’re much more likely to get in touch by phone than email. Research suggests that many customers still prefer voice channels when contacting a business.
Virtually all citation sources let you include NAP information, but you should certainly take advantage of opportunities to include more business data where it’s permitted. However, trying to “force” extra information into a website that only has fields for NAP data is not advised.
How Citations Help Your SEO Efforts
Unstructured citations are fairly common for new businesses – and if you don’t see much improvement, it can be discouraging. But structured citations are a different game entirely.
A wide map of citations helps cement your business as a regular at the top of local search results. It means that you aren’t hit so hard by algorithm changes or a citation website link breaking.
Here’s what you stand to gain from properly implemented, structured citations.
Getting recognized by Google
The ultimate goal of local SEO is to end up at the top of the local rankings – and citations are no different. This all begins with letting Google know that your business exists.
When search engines crawl citation websites, they recognize URLs in every business description as the same as websites with matching URLs and NAP data.
If Google can see that your business is well-signposted around the internet, it’s likely to attach more legitimacy to your website and promote your site in local results.
Referral traffic
Citations are arguably a better source of referral traffic than guest blogs and other link-building techniques. This is because customers have a very good reason to click through to your website when they’re looking at citations – they already want something from you.
Publishing citations on review sites like Yelp and Trustpilot puts you in plain view of customers with a readily identified need. These are the people who click through to your website with the intention of engaging with your business.
Local citations are also great for getting referral traffic moving towards unique landing pages. If you’re promoting a local event, you’ll want to use landing pages rather than your website’s homepage for this reason – more on that later.
Getting seen where it matters
People increasingly use maps to find local businesses. Semrush reports that Map apps are responsible for 30-40% of local business discovery.
As a business owner, you absolutely cannot afford to neglect that 30-40% of local traffic. Your visibility on Google Maps and Apple Maps needs to be clearly marked, with all your key information listed – and potentially a list of key services where relevant.
You should also be responsive when using citation sources that allow reviews, such as Maps apps. The app owners reward positive engagement on the business owner’s side, so it could help your business get displayed more prominently.
How do citations help SEO? Summary of key points
Here’s a quick rundown of why you need to build local citations as part of a cogent SEO strategy.
Improving your overall visibility by helping search engines recognize your business
Gaining referral traffic through appearing on popular directories and apps
Boosting location-based visibility on Map apps and increasing the chance of discovery
Keeping your business information accurate by helping third-party websites and aggregators discover accurate, clearly-presented information
Showing off your services where there are opportunities for product photos or videos
Engaging with customers via interactive citations such as Google Maps or Trustpilot
But wait...
Putting your business name and key information out there is marketing 101. All we’ve done here is take it online.
Nothing complicated, just common sense.
So why have I been hearing people say that there are storm clouds on the horizon for citation link-building?
Do Business Citations Still Matter in 2024?
The short answer – yes, of course they do.
Google’s March core update targeted low-quality, spammy links. This includes spammy citations posted on irrelevant directories in a botched attempt to obtain extra backlinks.
This type of unstructured citation spamming has always been something Google has penalized. All that changed in the March core update is that the search giant got better at doing it.
Keep it simple, keep it safe
You have nothing to worry about – and everything to gain – from creating a valid business listing in a relevant directory.
SEOs and website owners alike live in fear of the algorithm, but the golden rule is that Google never aims to penalize genuinely useful information.
Does this always work in practice? Depends on who you ask.
But following the rules, and working with a structured citation expert, is the best practice for promoting your business in local SEO results.
What Are the Most Important Citations for Business Directories?
These are the must-list directories for virtually any online business. Depending on your business location and niche, you’ll find that industry-related websites and local sites acting as directories are also fantastic resources.
Mind the wall of text – here’s your citations 101 guide.
Google My Business. An absolute must-have. Creating a Google business profile gives you access to the massive volume of traffic coming in from Maps and search.
Yelp. With an estimate 32m monthly app users alone in 2023 (to say nothing of website visitors), Yelp is one of the most promising sources of referral traffic.
Bing Places. Who uses Bing, right? About 1.1 billion people. And many of those use its Bing Places function to find local websites and businesses. You’d be a fool to ignore it.
Facebook. Having your business listed on Facebook with accurate data is a no-brainer. Facebook is still the world’s largest social media website, and a staggering number of people use Facebook to find local businesses. It’s also an easy way to get your citations shared.
Apple Maps. Apple consistently has around 50% of the US’s market share for smartphones. People mostly use Map apps on their phones, so you need to be tapped into that.
TrustPilot. Like Yelp, people who visit TrustPilot often already have discovery or even buying intent. Having your business cited on TrustPilot isn’t just a way to interact with customers and boost your credibility; it’s a potentially valuable source of referral traffic.
Relevant Business Directories. Your industry will have numerous directories to help people find a business near them. Search by location as well as industry, as these sites are often location-specific.
Yext. This is a great way to ensure you have the same business information displayed consistently across the web. Yext helps businesses provide accurate information for customers, making you easy to find and your search results more consistent.
Other Citations Directories
Foursquare is still influential in helping users find businesses. Make sure you’re visible.
TomTom is especially popular in Europe – if your business has European locations, you should absolutely be listed on TomTom.
Yell is the OG citation bank. While the Yellow Pages doesn’t have the market dominance it had in the offline era, it’s still a must-have in your citations portfolio.
You can also use a local citation finder to discover relevant local directories and websites.
How to Build Citations for Beginners
If you’re prepared to invest a bit of time, building citations can be cheap and fairly straightforward. Here’s how to create citations for local SEO.
1. Ensure your NAPs are consistent
Every business listing you publish should include the same information, presented (wherever possible) in exactly the same format.
This means keeping capitalization and punctuation the same as well as spacing in your phone number. If you want to list your county in your address, either do it for all or none – keep it standardized.
2. Link directly to location pages
Your main citations should link to your business’s homepage. However, if you’re publishing citations on local websites, it’s advisable to use a relevant landing page to help customers find the most relevant service.
If you’re creating a time-sensitive landing page for a promotion or event, make this your link. If you’re offering services across several counties or states and you’re building citations in very regional directories, link to your landing page for that region.
3. Categorize your business
Make sure to publish your business category so both searchers and search engines know what to expect from you. You need to be the one defining what you do; your customers won’t do it for you!
4. Add a concise, accurate description
If there’s space for a business description, you should include a quick list of key services as well as any information that you believe will help customers identify why you’re the best candidate to meet their needs.
Keep it short, but if there’s a space for it, make it count.
5. Use high-quality business or product photos
If there’s an option to add photographs or videos in a citation, I’d highly recommend it. Your description should be short, but a good photo illustrates exactly what you do as a business and also shows that you’re happy to put your work out in public.
Just make sure to take high-quality photographs – I’d suggest hiring a professional product photographer. A couple of hours’ work gives you photographs you can use on your website, in your citations, and across all your digital marketing.
6. Don't spam
So how many citations is good for SEO? The answer depends on how many relevant directories you can find.
Don’t start publishing citations on unrelated directories. This is a great way to get your website blacklisted. You don’t need thousands of citations to make your business relevant – but you do need to appear everywhere customers who actually want to discover your business are searching.
What is an Example of a Citation in SEO?
Here is a quick breakdown of a citation example from Google Maps.
As you can see, Google has a very nicely laid-out presence on Google Maps.
Its NAP data is mostly clear
Its location photography is excellent
It has a concise description
Its opening hours have been reviewed (fairly) recently
This is a reasonable example of how to do a Google Maps citation correctly. All the essentials are there.
However, there’s an issue.
I wanted to find Google Headquarters. I was redirected to Mountain View, but I had to manually find the “Googleplex,” which is what I was looking for – but I had to figure that out for myself.
Your customers should never have to spend time figuring out if they’ve found the right place. That’s citations 101.
I’m being facetious in this example of a citation, of course.
But it does underline the importance of having your NAP data match search intent – the business name should be exactly what you think your customers will search for.
Get High-Quality Local SEO Citations from SEOButler
At SEOButler, we have years of experience putting countless businesses on the map. Literally.
If you don’t have time to manually seek out and crawl directories listing your business info, let us handle the tough part for you.