Citations and local business Directory submissions can help you with your SEO optimization and help you improve your search results in the local area. Citations can include company name, phone number, address, website, and other important information. The citation is often referred to as NAP or name. address, and phone number.

About Citations

A citation doesn’t need links to your actual website to be valuable for you, although these will help. A citation value is not just in the backlinks it provides, the value is any mention of your business. Google will notice that your business has been mentioned through NAP information and then you get credit for it. When your business has more mentions you will get more prominence on Google and this improves your local SEO, this is why you should put your business into many different directory listings so that you get more citations.

Citations can be both structured or unstructured. When you have a structured citation this will include business information on some sort of business listing directory such as Yelp. An unstructured citation is your business information on a directory that is not specific to businesses such as a Wiki page, newspaper, magazine, and so on. To ensure you are listed correctly on the sites make sure all of your business information is up-to-date and accurate so people can find you. If something changes you’re going to have to change your information to ensure that people are getting an accurate description of your business.

Build Trust

You need citations to improve your local search rank because they help you build trust and verification. Search engines want to see that your business exists and citations help with this. When credible sources include the same information about your company, then the search engine sees your business as a legitimate one.

More Prominence

When it comes to the local search rankings, search engines factor-in the citations and they will help you get better rankings if you have more of them. Your business will be mentioned on different websites and this gives you more of an edge over your competition that is not listed on as many sites that you are.

Summary

If you want to take advantage of citations make sure you are submitting your site to local directories so people can find you. Not only will individuals be able to find you but you’re going to raise the number of citations that you have and this is just going to improve your overall search engine ranking.