What are local citations 

If you’ve spent any time researching how to achieve a better search engine presence in your local area, you may well have come across the term ‘local citations’. While this sounds like it could be a complicated technical undertaking, building citations is actually fairly easy – and one of the things you should be doing to boost your local SEO rankings.

What are citations? Simply put, a citation is the term given to place your business name and address is present online. You have probably built a few citations in fact without perhaps even realising that’s what you were doing. If you have set up your company Facebook page for instance, and filled in the address section and added your phone number of website, that’s one citation. If you have claimed your Google My Business listing, and filled in the company details section, that’s another citation. Any directory listings you have created are also citations. Why are they important? There are a few reasons that you will want to have citations on your radar as you go about building your new website, or having an existing site redesigned, but the two most important ones by far are search engine optimisation and consumer discovery. SEO Every website owner wants their site to rank well on Google. For local business owners, appearing prominently for search users in the immediate vicinity is even more important.Citations are a known SEO ranking factor and Google has said that it uses citations to help it determine rankings. One of the reasons for this is that citations gives the search engine information about your business. As a citation is based on a physical address, lots of citations allow Google to trust that is where you are located. It can use this knowledge to confidently include you in local search results for that particular area. The more complete citations you have, the better it is for your SEO. Consumer discovery While most of us go to Google to find products and services, not every website can appear on page one. Some consumers will also turn to directories or social media platforms like Facebook to find local businesses. The more citations you have, in various places, the easier it is for consumers to discover your business. Think of them as additional avenues back to your business. How to build local citations Citations are easy to build but it can take time. There are citation building services available but you can also begin the process yourself.·Check that your full business name and address (plus website, email and telephone number) has been added to all of your social media profiles. If not, add that information to build citations.·If you have directory listings or a presence on sites like Yell or Yelp, repeat that process and add your address, company name, contact number and website address to your listing.·Check review sites like TrustPilot·Join industry or trade associations or local chambers of commerce·Use a citation building service·Look for other opportunities such as listings in local newspapers