What are local citations?
A local citation is any reference to your business online that includes your basic contact information: particularly your business name, website, address, and phone number (NAP). Local SEO citations, local listings, or simply listings are referred to as local citations because online directories frequently include this information. Typically, the minimum information required to create a listing in a directory is your NAP. However, on many websites, you can include a lot more, such as:
- Business descriptions
- Industries or categories served
- Social media platforms
- User ratings and reviews
- Photos of your business or products
That being said, anyone can build local search citations, not just a business owner, so the circle of citation creators is much larger than one might have otherwise thought. Plus, sources aren’t limited to directories or data aggregators because any mention of your business—like a blog post—may be a citation if it includes your business name and contact information.
Left unmanaged for even short periods, your business information becomes inconsistent or outdated across hundreds of interaction points, which further inflates puzzlement among potential customers about your business, consequently leading to a slide in customer trust and loyalty. But it can also make a shambles of SEO, something that puts into jeopardy your very ability to be discovered online—ultimately a loss of market share and revenues.
The next step is local citation building or listing management, which makes sure that your business information is correct and consistent throughout all places on the internet. This will build up a strong online identity for you, hence backing up the brand reputation.
How can local citations help with SEO?
When people in your community search for a local business, local citations help Google deliver the most relevant results in local search. That’s because Google cross-checks business information across various sources before showing it to users. It looks at:
- Your Google Business Profile (formerly known as Google My Business)
- Google Maps
- Your website
- Business directories and other third-party sources
- User-contributed content
The more consistent your business information is across all these sources, the more trustworthy it appears to be. This can help you increase your local ranking because Google can display your business in the results with confidence.
- Business descriptions
- Industries or categories served
- Social media platforms
- User ratings and reviews
- Photos of your business or products
What is local citation building?
Local citation building is the practice of distributing and maintaining a business’s information across the Internet. This is also referred to as managing listings.
Building citations involves:
- Identifying all of your business’s existing citations across the web
- Claiming your local business listings (where possible) to gain control over them
- Updating outdated or incorrect information on your site and in citations
- Adding new information where necessary
- Removing duplicate or fraudulent business listings
- Creating new business listings in important online directories
Quickly audit your local citations across the Internet
It’s one thing to maintain the listings you’ve created yourself—namely, your Google Business Profile, Facebook page, Yelp page, etc. But what about all those citations you didn’t create?
Luckily, you don’t have to find them all yourself, because Semrush can help. All you have to do is set up your business in the Listing Management tool. Then, we’ll automatically audit your business data in over 70 U.S. business directories and more than 40 international ones.
Then, we’ll tell you:
- In Which directories you’re already listed in
- Which listings need to be updated
- Identify the local and industry-specific directories in which your business is not currently listed, but should be.
Automatically distribute up-to-date business info to the best directories
Once you’ve identified all those opportunities, the Listing Management tool can help you take advantage of them.
First, make sure all the business information you need to distribute is correct within Semrush. You can do this by setting up a location within the tool.
If you have more than one business location, you can set up separate locations for each one you want to manage within the tool.
Listing Management will automatically distribute your business details to citation websites you’re eligible for. Once the tool has distributed your information to citation sites, it will monitor each citation to make sure your listing remains correct.
Help customers find you more easily by eliminating misinformation
Identify opportunities. Check. Create new business citations in top directories? Double check. But what about the misinformation that’s already out there?
Listing Management doesn’t just find and create citations. It also maintains them. All you have to do is keep your business data up to date within the tool, and we’ll make sure all your citations match it.
We’ll help you locate and rid yourself of duplicate listings that are outdated, inaccurate, or even malicious, thus ensuring that your customers are not misinformed by bad information. This way, you can be certain that the right information will reach your customers.
Enhance your listings with the incorporation of user feedback.
Managing your citations will never be done. In a lot of cases, your customers will even help by suggesting changes that they feel are more correct. Using the Listing Management feature, you can review and approve or reject these in seconds.
All you have to do is navigate to the User Suggestions tab, and we’ll show you all your open suggestions by directory, location, and date. Then, click “approve” if the suggestion is more accurate than what’s already there. It’s as simple as that!
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