Hey there. I want to explain why your business NEEDS citations and what they are. My name is Stephen Alberts and I’m the creator of ReviewRail, customer feedback software. I’ll go over why you need these and also have a GOLDEN NUGGET tip for you that could help your website rankings!
Citations (or sometimes called local directories)
These are sites like Yelp, Angies List, Google My Business (Google local), Yellowpages and many others. They are places to list your businesses information. Google looks at this information when ranking your website. They want to see that you are listed on all of the important local directory sites.
The best part are most of these citations are completely FREE (cha-ching)!
The word on the street is that these are the new “backlinks” and helps with SEO/ranking your website. So it’s super important that you are listed on these sites. Google scans these citation sites and then scans your website. If the information matches correctly then it’s a + for you in Google.
Now that you understand what exactly a citation is, let me give you my tip when submitting your business to them.
Golden nugget tip
You NAP needs to be perfect when submitting your business to these sites. Not the NAP I need because my 1-year old is teething (yikes!) but the NAP I’m talking about is your business Name, Address, Phone (NAP). This information MUST be displayed EXACTLY the way it is on your website.
My advice is to get your Google My Business listing perfectly. And if you don’t have a Google listing, create one now! If you list your business as Your Company Inc. on your G listing then make sure it’s the same way on your site (don’t put Your Company Incorporated). Or if G displays St. as your street address, use the same on your site and don’t use Street.
I know this sounds crazy, but an inconsistent NAP can actually hurt your Google rankings!
Simply do this:
1. Make sure your business Name, Address and Phone are listed on all pages on your website (usually down at the bottom of your site is cool).
2. Make sure your Google My Business listing matches your website NAP.
3. Fix Yelp and all other listings so that this info is exact.
4. Submit your site to more free citations.
Most of your competitors probably aren’t doing this so I recommend following this right away. If you have any questions comment below.
