How To Get More Local Traffic By Doing Local Citations.

You need to build local citations to rank higher for local search queries and help people discover your business online. A local citation is any online mention of your business’s name, address, and phone number (NAP). Citations can occur on local business directories, websites, apps, and social platforms.

In this blog post, I will explain why local citations are important, what types of citations there are, how to get citations, and why consistency and accuracy matter.

Why are local citations important?

Local citations are important for two main reasons:

- They help search engines verify your business's existence, legitimacy, and trustworthiness. If the same NAP details appear across many relevant and trusted websites, then Google likely has increased confidence that your business exists, is operational, and that what you say about it is true. According to a survey by Moz, citations are the fifth most important ranking signal for local queries.

- They help people discover your business online. People don’t always use Google to find local businesses. They often visit sites like Yelp, Yellow Pages, and specialist directories like lawyers.com. That’s one of the reasons why it’s useful to get listed on these sites. The other reason is that business directories often dominate search results for local queries. For example, try searching for “plumber Nottingham,” and you will see that most of the top results are business directories that list lots of different plumbers.

What types of citations are there?

There are two main types of local citations:

- Structured citations: These are the ones that appear on business directories and other platforms that have a specific format for displaying NAP data. For example, Yelp, Facebook, Google My Business, etc. These are usually easy to create and manage because you must fill out a form with your business information.

- Unstructured citations: These are the ones that appear on websites, blogs, news sites, apps, maps, etc., that do not have a specific format for displaying NAP data. For example, a blog post that mentions your business name and phone number or a map that shows your business location. These are usually harder to create and manage because you have to rely on the webmaster or the author to include your NAP data correctly.

How to get citations?

There are many ways to get local citations for your business. Here are some of the most common ones:

- Claim and optimize your Google My Business listing: This is the most important citation you can get because it appears on Google Maps and Google Search. Please fill out all the relevant fields, add photos and videos, respond to reviews, and update your information regularly.

- Use a citation-building service: Many services can help you create and manage citations on hundreds of platforms. For example, Moz Local, BrightLocal, Whitespark, etc. These services usually charge a fee per location per year, and they can save you a lot of time and hassle.

- Do it yourself: You can manually create and update citations on various platforms. This can be time-consuming and tedious, but it gives you more control over your citations. You can use tools like Ahrefs or Local Citation Network to find relevant citation sources for your industry and location.

- Earn citations naturally: You can also earn citations organically by creating valuable content, getting featured in the media, participating in community events, sponsoring local organizations, etc. These citations are usually more authoritative and trustworthy because they come from third-party sources.

Why do consistency and accuracy matter?

One of the most important things to remember when building local citations is to keep them consistent and accurate across all platforms. This means using the same NAP data everywhere and correcting errors or discrepancies as soon as possible.

This is important because:

- It helps search engines match your citations with your website and Google My Business listing. This can improve your local rankings and visibility.

- It helps customers find your business online and offline. If your NAP data is consistent or accurate, customers may get confused or frustrated and choose another business.

- It helps avoid duplicate listings or negative reviews. If your NAP data is inconsistent or inaccurate, you may end up with multiple listings for the same business or reviews that belong to another business. This can hurt your reputation and credibility.

To check and maintain your citation consistency and accuracy, you can use tools like Moz Local, BrightLocal, Whitespark, etc. These tools can help you audit your citations, find and fix errors, monitor changes, and track your progress.

Local citations are an essential part of local SEO and online marketing. They can help you rank higher for local search queries and help people discover your business online. To get the most out of your local citations, you must create them on relevant and trusted platforms, keep them consistent and accurate across all platforms, and monitor and update them regularly.

I hope this post has helped you understand how to increase traffic locally by doing local citations. If you have any questions or feedback, please leave a comment below.