When it comes to local SEO, citations and directory listings can help build trust and credibility with Google. By having consistent NAP—name, address, & phone number—on these listing sites, you can have a positive impact on Google Maps and Google Search rankings.
However, there are many citation and other SEO services that push misleading information about directory and citation listings.
Let’s look at citations for local SEO, various options, how they affect rankings, and address some of the common myths around citations.
Citations & NAP (Name, Address, Phone)
In the early days of the internet, and as Google Maps started to fill its own unique space, Google needed to rely on third party directories to help confirm business information.
Naturally, these citations, or business directories, became a great resource for Google to reference.
SEOs began to notice that, if a business placed their NAP information on these directory listings, they would see a positive improvement in their rankings—more specifically on Google Maps.
On the other hand, if they didn’t have any listings, or had listing with incorrect or mismatching information, this could actively hurt rankings.
That’s where the idea of having “consistent NAP” comes from.
However, over the last decade Google has become less reliant on outside directories, and this strategy has become much less effective.
Changes to Citations & Google Rankings
Anything that is easy to manipulate typically becomes less valuable over time. Citations are no different. Businesses were listing their information on 100s of websites that, simply put, didn’t really matter.
However, a few of these websites have high customer trust, high traffic, and are still very important for your business to utilize—typically because they not only help build Google trust, but they also provide business with visibility and potential lead-flow.
And the trust benefits from having 100s over citations was consolidated down into these select few.
I call these the “Big 7″—the most important citation listing websites for improving visibility and Google rankings.
The “Big 7” Citations
Google’s job is to simply give customers what they want. That’s why, if you analyzed the traffic of these “Big 7” citation websites, compared to the other 1,000s options, the “Big 7” likely get 90% or more of the total traffic.
No matter where a page is on a website, if it doesn’t get any traffic, Google doesn’t care about it.
In fact, Google’s entire system is set up around traffic and how traffic flows from one place to another.
When a website page, or even an entire website, lacks traffic, then Google likely ignores it.
On the other hand, popular websites that get traffic are extremely important to Google. That’s where these “Big 7” directories come into play. They are simply high traffic, popular websites that publicly display business NAP information.
Here are the “Big 7” business directories, in no particular order:
- Yelp
- Facebook Pages
- LinkedIn Business
- Nextdoor
- Apple Maps
- Bing Maps
- BBB (Better Business Bureau)
Each of these websites give you the opportunity to input and display your business NAP information.
For many of these, you’ll need to create a separate listing for each business location. But this is relatively simple.
They are also free to list your business—however, options like the BBB offer paid services as well, but are not necessary for you to list your business.
Take the time to acquire these, they are helpful for improving business rankings, and can also be useful for when changing business NAP information through this backdoor method that helps avoid suspensions.
Google uses these sites to gather and confirm important business information, so make these a priority.
More Helpful Citations
Now that we’ve covered the most important citations and directories, are there more citations that can be helpful for your business?
Yes! But where the “Big 7” are applicable to all businesses, other options will vary based on your business.
Here are some other business listings you should consider:
- Industry Directories or Associations — Business listings or groups reserved for your specific industry or niche.
- City or Local Directories — Local websites created specifically for your city or region.
- Chamber(s) of Commerce — Non-government business organization with locations in many communities.
Every business will have different options, so it’s best to explore all of them. For instance, the NRCA is a popular roofing association with its own business directory for members. This type of directory can have a positive impact for roofing companies doing local SEO and looking to improve rankings.
Many of these niche directories have an associated cost. It’s always best to weigh that cost against the potential benefit for your business. However, they typically have low tier options that will give you everything you need from an NAP perspective.
What About General Citations?
By acquiring the most common citations, and searching for specific citations that relate to your business or location, you’ll cover the majority of important directory options.
However, there are always 100s of low traffic, general citations that exist.
What about these? How effective are they? And how much weight should you put on these business websites?
General Citation Listings
Business is best viewed through an ROI lens. Spending money, or time, on any business activity should have a purpose.
For general citations, it’s important to say, getting these are unlikely to hurt your business—and there may even be a small benefit.
Using a service like Fiverr can help you get citation listings for your business at a low cost. However, you need to make sure to monitor the work done and make sure it’s done correctly.
Also, save username and password information for future use if you need to update business information—finding this later or trying to adjust this without login information can be nearly impossible.
However, in my professional opinion, services like Yext and other high cost citation services are a complete ripoff and not worth your money at all.
If you feel you must have these, then keep your costs low. And if you need to adjust information, or you simply cannot adjust information, don’t overly stress about it.
Myth: Mismatching Citations
There is a common myth in local SEO that mismatching information on your citation listings will hurt you—and so bad that you need to get this fixed or suffer the consequences.
This puts local business owners and SEOs into a frenzy trying to cleanup citations from dead sites that you’ll never get a hold of.
It’s important to understand, this was true years ago—so this myth is not without some validity.
But that time has passed. Once again, Google understand the world of the internet much better now. It can understand that if one listing says “STE 101” and another says “Suite 101” that these are the same.
It can understand that if you move, some listings may be difficult or nearly impossible to change.
If you need to change listing information, do your best, quickly, and move on. Don’t waste time, or money, chasing down these dead listing websites.
Make sure your industry and city citations are correct, and the important “Big 7” citations are correct, and you’ll have 99% of what matters for your business.
Don’t waste your money on expensive citation cleanup services. The cost/benefit isn’t worth it, and it’s not worth losing any sleep over.
Citations for Local SEO
With that, you have the citations set up that you need, and you can move on to what’s really important long term—something we take very seriously here at Brightbeam SEO.
Local business citations are helpful to Google because they are helpful to customers, and having correct information on the top citation websites is smart because you can get traffic and leads from them independent of Google.
Now let’s move on to the next lesson in our local SEO guide: