Bill Treloar October 20, 2021 Citation management is an important part of the local SEO services we offer to small businesses. There are several reasons every small business needs to pay attention to this.
7 benefits of good citation management
Broad Exposure
How widely are you known across the Internet?
You need to make sure you’re listed and easy to find across the web at dozens of local search engines, directories, maps, mobile apps, and voice assistants like Alexa. This also helps Google, Yahoo & Bing to have more trust in who you are, what you do, and where you are.
Accuracy and Consistency
It can make sure your NAP (name address, phone) is consistent across all of those listings. Before working with us, a recent client was missing from more than a third of the top citation listings. Even worse, two listings had an incorrect address and 14 had their old company name. When this happens, Google has very low confidence in who or where you are. And that’s devastating to your chances of showing up in local searches.
Visible Reviews
Having reviews on multiple sites builds your reputation.
Having review stars show up in multiple places enhances your reputation. When you get a word-of-mouth referral, odds are that person will look you up by name before they call, just to check you out. When they do, your website should show up — but so will many of your citations, at places like Google My Business, Yelp, MerchantCircle, Facebook, and more. Some may show up that you’ve never heard of, like Clutch or TrustPilot. If all of those have review stars displaying in the search results, that increases the likelihood that person will want to do business with you.
Review Monitoring
We send our clients an email every time someone posts a new review for them. Responding to reviews promptly has been found to increase conversions and closed business. So it’s important to know about new reviews as they happen.
Suppressing duplicate listings helps search engines trust which is correct.
Duplicate Listing Monitoring
Duplicate and near-duplicate listings can confuse search engines, and that’s never a good thing. We alert our clients whenever we find a possible duplicate so they can check it out and suppress it if necessary.
Robust Business Information
Good citation management doesn’t just start with getting your NAP widely disseminated. All of those citation sources gather and reflect lots of information about your business:
- Website and email links
- Description of your business and services
- Social media links
- Business hours including special holiday hours
- Accessibility information
- Your logo and photos
- much more
Inclusion in verticals
Google is getting better and better at responding to what’s called vertical search. Proper citation management will promulgate information that can help you show up when people search for specific things like
- Wheelchair accessible dentist near me
- Local restaurant with lasagna
- Woman-led wellness coach
- Veteran-led SEO company
- etc.
Structured data markup focuses Google on your essential information.
Agree? Disagree? Have questions? Let us know in the Comments section below.
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