Citation Building Tips to Scale Your Local SEO Strategy
Citation building is a renowned strategy to reap results from your local SEO practices. With a few carefully curated essential steps, your business can scale its online visibility significantly. To help you with the process, we have compiled a list of citation-building techniques to boost your SEO game.
How Does Citation Building Influence Your Search Rankings?
Local citation building is something every business should leverage to establish its online presence. If you are wondering what is citation building, let us explain it here. Local citations are information surrounding a business, specifically its name, address, and phone number (NAP), and online reviews, that are found in local search directories, social platforms, blogs, news articles, etc. Citation-building services aim at using these data to enhance the search appearance of a brand.
Providing accurate and consistent information across various online sources prompts search engines to recognize the authenticity of a business and enhance its local search reputation. SEO citation-building practices also pave the way for better domain authority. Local search citations serve as testimonials for business services, and gathering citations from prominent websites will boost the chances of finding potential customers. Citation building for SEO should be part of every organization’s comprehensive strategy to upscale their business game.
Best Practices for Optimized Local Business Citations
Businesses should actively engage in local business citation practices to mark their dominance in the digital spectrum. The following are some of the tried and tested practices to upgrade your citation-building practices.
#Curating a list that is unique to your business
A curated list of citation opportunities is the first step in fine-tuning your local SEO plan. To build citations, you need to know which sources you can effectively use and trust. Start by communicating with your team about the conferences they go to and the magazines they read that are relevant to the industry. Identifying citation opportunities that are unique to your niche offerings will aid you to establish your presence on the map and garner more customers. If you are looking to promote your business as a community-oriented venture, then it is best to focus your attention on being listed on local websites. These websites are commonly backed by locally owned businesses, and through citation building, you are building a reputation as a locally-owned venture.
Finally, give your complete attention to developing top local citations through bigger and more popular platforms like Google My Business, Apple Maps, Yelp, and BBB.
#Prioritizing quality over quantity
Getting quality citations should be a leading priority for businesses of all sizes. Citation building for local SEO should follow a strategic approach. Instead of mindlessly submitting your citations to hundreds of directories, make sure you have your listings on a handful of top online sources.
Giving your time and attention to irrelevant directories will hinder you from focusing on other demanding areas of your business. To get results for your efforts, you need to build quality citations. Focus on optimizing your business data on popular directories, Google Maps, Yelp, search engines, and social platforms.
#Optimizing Google Business Profile
An optimized Google Business listing leads to improved online visibility. These listings occupy a large part of Google search results, and they offer a peek into the core business data, like its address, contact information, and customer reviews. The primary focus for any local citation-building service is setting up the organization’s Google Business Profile. If you have successfully completed this step, then all you have to do is to optimize your profile with accurate business info. You can do this by providing a proper business description, a business category, and accurate business information (NAP). Follow this by uploading quality images to showcase your product or services.
#Using data aggregators
Data aggregators are specific websites that effectively collect and share business data across online directories and search platforms. They are efficient tools that aid in data centralization, making it easier for search engines to display business information. Data aggregators like Data Axle, Foursquare, and Factual, are popular tools that businesses use to scale their online presence.
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