Local Business Citations & SEO

Boost Your Local SEO with Accurate Business Citations

Your business is well-established with customers – but search engines like Google need to use business citations to confirm your information.

High-quality business citations enhance your chances of appearing in the local search results. This increases visibility and drives more traffic to your website, helping you capture more customers.

This article covers what you need to know about creating business citations, auditing and optimising citations to improve your local SEO, and ensuring your business stands out online.

What are Business Citations?

Business citations (also known as “local citations”) are the information that pertains to your business. This includes where you’re located, your hours of operation and contact details. The purpose of business citations is to help customers understand the operational aspects of your business, but they also have another function.

Business citations provide evidence to Google and other Search Engines that your business is legitimate. And the more places that cite this information, the stronger your local SEO presence can be.

Below is an example of a Gordon Digital business citation on True Local:

True Local directory showing Gordon Digital business listing

Business citations commonly include your Name, Address and Phone Number (NAP). They can also include other information about your business, like:

Your website address
Year of establishment
Business category
ABN (Australian Business Number)
Service areas
Service or products
Payment methods
Social media links
User reviews and photos

Having consistent citations helps search engines to evaluate your business as relevant and accurate to a person’s search query. It demonstrates that your business is real and confirms the details in your Google Business Profile.

You’ll usually be creating business citations yourself, but there are times when you might find citations created by someone else. This can occur if you’ve hosted a local event, sponsored a sports team or exhibited at a conference. Those organisations may do a write-up on your business and create a citation without you realising.

Why are Business Citations Important for Local SEO?

Ask any SEO expert and they’ll tell you that citations are important for your local SEO strategy. Without them, you can struggle to rank for search queries made within your local area.

Building and maintaining business citations supports your local SEO strategy in the following ways:

Increasing local visibility
Establishing credibility
Improving search rankings
Improving online reputation
Showcasing trust signals (e.g. customer reviews)

Additionally, business citations also foster local engagement and can funnel leads to your website or encourage them to make a phone call directly from the listing.

Citations as a Ranking Factor

Citations are one of the top 10 ranking factors in local search. Business citations are also considered a top-ranking factor for Google’s local packs.

Local Packs are a SERP (Search Engine Results Page) feature that’s displayed at the top of the page when a user is searching with local intent. This appears above organic listings and is another way to claim ‘real estate’ in the search results.

Local map pack in search results for digital marketing search term

In the above example, the local pack results show more than business citations. They also show the business ratings and details like the number of years in operation.

While local pack results mostly draw information from your Google Business Profile, it cross-references this information with other business citations. Each citation helps Google to formulate an overall entity that’s related to your business.

Citations vs Backlinks

Citations help Google to identify your business when people are searching. They are also a great opportunity to link back to your website (commonly referred to as a backlink).

Citations and backlinks are both important to your local SEO strategy:

Backlinks – When a website mentions your brand name, they should link back to you as the source. Google sees these links as a “vote of confidence” that your website contains high-quality, authoritative information on a particular topic.

As you gather backlinks, more authority is passed to your website. This contributes to your ranking and can help you appear higher in the search results.
Citations – The focus should be references of your business details that are consistent with NAP information. As the number of citations increases, so too does the likelihood of your business appearing in the local search results.

Types of Business Citations

Owned Sites

Start with your own website! Your website should be the source of truth for all things relating to your business. Any further business citations that you create should reflect the information that’s on your website.

For a business with one location, we recommend placing these details in your website’s footer as well as the contact page. For businesses with multiple locations, we recommend creating dedicated landing pages for each of your locations.

Search Engine

Google is the dominant search engine with an 81.95% market share, but there is also Bing and Apple Maps to consider. To increase your local SEO presence across these platforms, start by creating a business profile for each.

Start with a Google Business Profile. Google Business Profiles are linked to Google Maps, so your business will show up when locals are searching.

Google updates what information can be displayed in your Google Business Profile from time to time. Optimising your profile regularly, and make sure you’re uploading up-to-date information about your opening hours, products, services and address!

Review Sites

Yelp, Trustpilot, Tripadvisor, and Social Media platforms all help to share customer experiences. Creating business listings on these sites gives customers a platform for feedback, and their reviews can build social trust and improve your rankings.

Data Aggregators

Data aggregators work differently to a one-off listing like those mentioned above. The benefit of using a data aggregator is that you can submit your information once and it will be distributed to a larger number of sites.

While these other websites may not receive as much traffic as Yelp or Facebook, they can generate more opportunities for your business and build your local SEO presence.

Niche-Specific Business Directories

If you want to improve your website’s authority, we highly recommend including industry-specific business directories. Because these directories are specific to your business niche, they can provide a substantial boost to local SEO and help get you in front of the right customers.

The quality matters more than the quantity when it comes to business directories. Avoid creating citations that aren’t relevant to your industry. For example, a plumber shouldn’t have a listing on a tourism and hospitality site like Tripadvisor. Nor would a restaurant have a listing on HiPages.

Geographic-Specific Listings

Some citation websites are specific to your geographical area. This could be a chamber of commerce or a city-based directory. Some common Brisbane-based directories include:

Focus on high-quality citations. High-quality citations improve the chances that your business will get a mention when someone is searching for a local business.

How to Optimise your Business Citations

Identify Key Opportunities

It can be tempting to get stuck into creating profiles and listings straight away. But taking a strategic approach will save you time in the long run.

Make a list of the citations you want. You should aim to create a variety of the types we discussed above. Look for sites with strong brand recognition and professional presentation.

If you have access to SEO tools, checking other metrics, such as organic traffic volumes and authority score, can assist in further quantifying opportunities.

Review and Update Current Citations

It’s likely that you’ll find at least one existing business citation you didn’t create yourself. Often, directories will create a profile about your business and allow you to claim and verify the details. Sometimes, a third party can suggest changes to your citation, so it’s important to review citations periodically.

Consistency is the key, so ensure that these details are the same across every citation. This also reduces the possibility of others using incorrect information when they cite you.

Remove Duplicate Listings

If you’ve moved address a few times, multiple or duplicate listings are common. Ideally, you should have a single listing for your business (unless you have multiple locations).

Removing duplicates can be time-consuming, but you can usually reach out to the administrator of the directory and ask them to remove or merge multiple profiles.

Create New Business Citations

Once you’ve identified opportunities for new business citations, begin creating profiles on each of these sites. You may need to reach out the director and have them create a profile on your behalf.

If you have access to SEO tools, look at the backlink profiles of your competitors and see what directories or citations they have! You can also search for directories or citation types that are relevant to your business and industry.

Get Your Local SEO off the Ground With Gordon

Business citations are a small but important part of your local SEO strategy. Creating consistent citations and regularly updating your listings is one of the best things you can do for your business.

Updating business citations is a never ending task. If you’re unsure how to get started, the team at Gordon would love to help!

We’re experts in local SEO. As part of our strategies, we create, maintain and optimise business citations to help you secure the best spots in Google’s search results.