What are Local Citations

What Are Citation Building Services?

Top Local Citations will play a significant role in ranking your website organically on the first page results for the major search engine providers. This is the non-paid advertising results. If done correctly with Top Local Citations, we  will drive your business higher in the search results and your business could show up above businesses paying to be shown on the first page results in some cases. Web directory submission and Google map citation are two of the best ways to help improve page rank authority with an additional series of techniques to help boost your site rankings through organic searches by submitting your website to top directories and website lists. 

Non branded search has become the dominant look up method when searching for local businesses like “restaurants near me” or “where is the local coffee shop” and according to a study conducted by In front Web works 95% of searches are conducted on Google. In addition, over 85% of searches are being conducted on mobile devices. Top Local Citations helps with this by adding citations or “mentions” of your business and brand on web pages, local directories, listings and articles in the United States, Canada, Australia, UK & All Other Countries. Also important are Local maps results on Google. These key tags mentioned are called the NAP which can be your Business Name, Address, Phone Number plus your business hours, business description, services or product details etc.

Creating reference citations is like giving Google or Bing a pointer or reference about where your business is located in United States, Canada, Australia, UK & All Other countries. The top search engines use reference data to rank local results. Now in 2023, when searches are conducted a search for local business types, a local search query algorithm takes over and the search engines try to provide accurate results based on many factors and  one of the key factors calculated include mentions, “citations” of your business name, address and phone number. This is called the NAP and will help find your location in local web directories.

We also include relevant business description content and hours of operation to further assist the search engines in promoting your business as the most relevant choice for the search request.  This will include your name, e-mail address, targeted keywords, title of the directory listing, business description, business category and anything relevant to your business.  After submission in some cases, a directory may require you to verify your ownership of a digital asset and some cases send us back verification codes which may be sent to you by text or email. The more mentions you publish, the more likely Google, Bing and others will recognize that your business is actually located at the mentioned address these top search engines will return your  correct address or webpage to the person conducting the search.

There are three main types of directory submission sites. They are paid, reciprocal and free. We work with the top free listing sites to keep your SEO budget small which will improve your search rank and reciprocal sites can be unreliable and inconsistent. With paid directory submission you can anticipate spending a significant portion of your advertising budget due to these sites requiring fees to be listed which we typically recommend for advanced SEO and reputation management. The paid sites do get quicker results when combined with our free submission techniques, but also come at a price determined by the directory like  www.yellowpages.com,  local.yahoo.com,  www.angieslist.com, www.yelp.com,  www.superpages.com,  www.bbb.org,  www.yellowbook.com just to name a few. Keep in mind that the search algorithms can be changed at any time so staying on top of the latest SEO techniques is the key to our strategy and our specialty.