Local Search Optimization: The Importance of Local Citations

  Flickr's picture by Larsz

Why are online citations important for your business?

Since Google started showing the local 10 Pack (the 10 pack is the block of 10 local listings that “sits” at the top or in the middle of Google search result pages) for generic single phrase searches, the importance of local search optimization has increased even further.  Local citations can be defined as “mentions” of your business name and address or telephone number on other sites. These mentions, or references are classified as citations even without a hyper link to your website. David Mihm, in his 2008 post, describes in great detail the difference between traditional links and citations.

The “online citations” of a business name were described as one of the top local search ranking factors in 2009. These citations, or references if you prefer, help determine your business listing relevance on a search engine’s local verticals (Google Maps, Yahoo! Local, Bing) and strengthen your overall online business profile. The number and quality of citations helps to increase the degree of certainty the search engines have about your business. Investing your time into building quality, relevant online citations will increase referral and organic search engine traffic to your business website.

Example of online citations: Allegro Pizza in Philadelphia (Google’s Local Business Listing):

As you can see from the above  screen capture, Allegro Pizza’s citations are coming from various sources (Internet yellow pages: superpages.com, niche review sites: urbanspoon.com, local neighborhood portals: ucityphila.org)

Before you start

The accuracy of the data you will be providing, directly or indirectly, to the search engines is crucial.  Make sure that all details are correct and up to date.  As with most SEO processes, keyword research should come first. Choose your primary keywords and use them to compose a business description, choose categories, provide relevant tags or enter additional business information.

Then start building online references for your business making sure to prioritize submissions. It makes sense to start by signing up and providing your business details directly to the search engines:

• Google Business Ceneter (LBC) – you can verify that you are the owner of a business via phone or postcard (it’s getting a bit trickier when your business has more than 10 locations, there are various methods to do so, but I’m leaving this for another post).
• Bing Local -  a bit annoying that Microsoft does not allow phone verifications, you will have to patiently await a postcard from the search engine.
• Yahoo! Local

This registration with the search engines is the absolute minimum but you would be surprised how many businesses have not yet claimed their listings in the search engines. By not claiming your listing you not only lose the opportunity of free, targeted leads but you also become vulnerable “community edits“. To enter the minimum business information should not take longer than 5 min, however I strongly recommend to add as much relevant information as possible.  By having a  full business listing you are not only “helping” search engines to understand more about your products and services, but you also become more trustworthy to potential customers. Mike Blumthals recently wrote about how to complete your Google LBC listing to 100% .

The next step on your local “citation” list are listing on the primary data provider (or legacy data providers) sites:

• Acxiom
• infoUSA
• Localeze

The above three legacy data providers are highly trusted by search engines, so make sure you listed there and your business details  are up to date (read how you should manage your online business listings – tips from Acxiom, Localeze and InfoUSA representatives)

My Experience with “citations” as a local search ranking factor

One of my first local search projects was a small real estate agency from Southern New Jersey in 2008. The client had just opened his business in a  small town and did not even have a website. After launching a simple site (on Wordpress) with a few pages and optimizing it (content, on-page) I then decided to take David’s post seriously about local citations and get to work.  Though my client was operating in a very competitive  market, my plan was to focus all off-page activity on  building free citations from internet yellow pages (IYPs) only. There was no budget for link acquisitions, authoritative directories  (i.e. Yahoo! Directory), press releases or social media.

After manually submitting business details to around 20 well-established  and well-indexed Internet yellow pages and few  local directories we started to see results. Search engine and referral traffic to the website increased almost instantly. The number and quality of leads (emails, on-site forms, and phone calls)  followed the traffic numbers. My client’s new site outranked “older” more established competition in Google Maps and in universal search’s 10 pack for the queries Remax would .

List of Internet Yellow Pages and Local Search Directories

The below table is a work in progress, if you see any inaccuracy or would like to add a directory please leave a comment at the end of this article.

Table Description:

• Google Trends column -in  most of the above IYPs you can upgrade your listing to “Enhanced”  so it would be wise first to check  the traffic trend to these sites (you can compare up to 5 sites in one graph). The links in the column direct you to graphs reflecting the number of daily unique visitors to that website (data sources: aggregated Google search data, aggregated opt-in anonymous Google Analytics data, opt-in consumer panel data, third-party market research).  Also, Andrew Scotland’s “IYP SEO Rankings 2009 Report” will help you to decide if an IYP is worth advertising on.
  
• RSS (New Reviews) column – Once you list your business, directory visitors can review and rate your services. As  part of your reputation management tasks, you should know what your consumers are saying about you. However it can be very time consuming to check every directory daily. Fortunately some of the directories provide RSS feeds on your listing page.  Aggregating these feeds in one place (using tools like Yahoo! Pipes, Google Docs or even Google Reader) can save you time and give you extra control over what is being said about your brand. For sites which do not provide RSS for business listings you can use free services like changedetection.com.
  
• Image column – gives the option of uploading photo of your business
• Video column – gives the option of uploading video related to your business or services you provide

Finding more  local “citation” sources:

The above local search directories are the most well known and authoritative websites which can be used for any business category. Since their business listing pages are quite quickly indexed by Google, you should find these “citations” on your Google Maps business listings quite quickly.

However if your are in the competitive market you should extend your submissions to the following type of sites:

1. Niche or location-specific directories (i.e NorthEast Philly Online) are places you want to be listed too. To find them you can do a quick check of which sites are displayed on your competitors’ Google Maps listings (”We Pages” tab), also you may find this tool useful too (enter “category” + “city”, “state” or “region”)
2. Local Chamber of Commerce’s directory listing i.e greaterphilachamber.com
3. If your business is located in large city, chances are that there are portals dedicated to your neighborhood, part of the city i.e. University City in Philadelphia ucityphila.org or Old City District
4. Online local newspapers are a great source of “citations”/references. They are strongly relevant to your business (location) and mostly highly trusted by search engines, i.e. Cape May County Herlad’s Marketplace. Almost every local newspaper features all sorts of guides i.e “Eating Out Guide”, “Local Shopping Guide”, or “Local Green Business Guide”
5. Twitter and other social networking sites are great for searching for bloggers in your city or neighborhood i.e http://chirpcity.com/, http://www.twellow.com/, http://philly.everyblock.com/ , http://placeblogger.com/philadelphia/4560349
6. Local Suppliers, corporate customers like to highlight their local community ties (green initiatives i.e “We buy only local products”). Check their websites and see if they list any local businesses.

Recommended tools for researching and building online citations:

• getlisted.org – free , gives you an instant snapshot of your business listings in the search engines
• universalbusinesslisting.org – paid, affordable service which will list your business details across many local search engines and directories