When it comes to boosting your website’s page ranking, every bit helps. One way to start to beat out your competition, especially if you’re a small or mid-sized business, is to make sure that you have local citations pointing to your business. While they may seem like a small aspect of your search engine optimization, local citations can actually have a lot of power when it comes to getting you to display higher in search results. Read on to learn more about what local citations are and why you should be leveraging them to boost your SEO.
Put simply, local citations refer to any online database or business aggregator that features your business. Generally, the information in these kinds of listings is relatively sparse, featuring information such as your business name, address, phone number, and website.
Sometimes, you’ll have a brief blurb about your company, too, although that depends on which website your local citation appears on. Some of the most common aggregators include big-name platforms like Google My Business, Facebook, and Yelp. Other places that local citations are included are sites such as MapQuest, Trip Advisor, Yelp, Angie’s List, and Apple Maps.
If you get your company listed on all of the above local citations, it can be a major boon for your website. This has to do, in part, with an aspect of SEO known as domain authority. Domain authority refers to how much weight a specific website has as an authority for particular search terms and keywords.
If heavily trafficked websites like Google My Business and Facebook also point to your website it can give you a big boost. This is because they themselves have strong domain and page authority. In effect, their strength gets shared with your website when you are referenced by them, which is exactly what local citations do. As a result, it’s always a good idea to have as many local citations as possible so that customers looking for businesses in your industry and area are able to connect with you.
Local SEO is important for other reasons, too, and local citations can also help your local SEO. For example, many searches are often performed in the interest of finding a store or other business close to the individual performing the search. In these situations, if your business is in a specific radius of the searcher, you’re more likely to be in the top results but only if you have good SEO. As a result, it’s imperative that you start using local citations as a way to ensure that you’re featured near the top of the results.
Especially when you consider the fact that the sorts of people searching for things like “Thai food near me” or “gas station nearby” are looking to make a purchase very soon, if not immediately, it’s even more crucial that you show up in the search results if you want to make a sale. As such, setting up local citations can not only improve your website’s page ranking but can also contribute to greater sales.
If all of this sounds a bit daunting, you aren’t alone. Finding, setting up, and managing your local citations can take a lot of time; however, it’s definitely worth the investment of time and energy. As a result, it may be worth retaining a company that specializes in offering you local citations service. From creating structured citations to monitoring and maintaining your citations, an SEO company can give you the expert advice and peace of mind to truly grow your business.
If you’re looking to really improve your page rank while maximizing your own time, it can be best to use a third party who knows what they’re doing and has a track record of success. Although it will cost money, leveraging your local citations is one of the best and most cost-effective ways to really grow your company’s web presence.
