Local Business Citations and Local/GEO SEO
Questioning why your competitors are ranking so high for local keywords and Google Maps (Google MyBusiness Listing)? The best way to raise your chances to rank high for local searches is through Citations. Citations are not links pointing to your website but rather references that contain certain information about your business Name, Address, and Phone aka NAP on local review sites, directories and business listings. Google visits these third party directories and listing sites and then takes the data into account when determining which business listing to show for “Geographically targeted” searches (Local Searches).
One mistake that many businesses make when claiming listings and citations is they are not consistent with their business location data. Both on your website and throughout the entire web the “NAP” data has to be consistent and identical throughout, as Google calculates the credibility of genuine and real businesses based on the fact that their information is consistent and valid.
There are over 300+ good sites to use for citations and this list contains niche directories for Doctors, Lawyers, and Real Estate Agents and so on.
Some directories are now as it seems exclusively controlled by a company called Yext, however it is possible to get on these sites without Yext. To be honest we do not recommend using Yext to generate citations because you have to pay them every year and if you don’t you loose the listings. They basically control you. There are other options we can help you explore.
For now a good starting point for citations is using the list below or contacting us and let us build your citations up for you. This is included with our Local SEO services.
| https://www.facebook.com/ | |
| Google (aka Google+ Local) | http://www.google.com/mybusiness |
| Bing – Places for Business | https://www.bingplaces.com/ |
| Hotfrog.com | http://www.hotfrog.com/ |
| Yahoo Directory | http://dir.yahoo.com/ |
| Yahoo Local | http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/local-listings/ |
| AOL Yellow Pages | http://yellowpages.aol.com/ |
| BizJournals | http://businessdirectory.bizjournals.com/ |
| DMOZ.org | http://www.dmoz.org/ |
| BBB.org | http://www.bbb.org/ |
| MapQuest | http://www.mapquest.com/ |
| Yelp | http://www.yelp.com/ |
| Booking.com | http://www.booking.com/ |
| tripadvisor | http://www.tripadvisor.com/ |
| Foursquare | http://foursquare.com/add_venue |
| Yellowpages.com | http://www.yellowpages.com/ |
| Angieslist | http://www.angieslist.com/ |
| CitySearch | http://www.citysearch.com/ |
| SuperPages | http://www.superpages.com/ |
| Yellowbook | http://www.yellowbook.com/ |
| OpenTable | http://www.opentable.com/ |
| MerchantCircle | http://www.merchantcircle.com/ |
| Manta | http://www.manta.com/ |
| Price Line | http://www.priceline.com/ |
| UrbanSpoon |
http://www.urbanspoon.com/ |