What are citations and how can they help me with SEO?
A citation is basically a reference to your business’s NAP (name, address, phone#). In a similar way that backlinks help add to your pages authority so do these mentions. Although you’d prefer to have a link back to your site just having your companies NAP in regular text will help.
At times you may have just a partial citation like only your name and phone# or name and address. This will not bring the same kind of ranking power that a consistent NAP will bring. A full citation will have the entire NAP. Best advice is to find out how you are listed on your google my business page and website and then build your citations around that. Make sure you use all the same dashes and prefixes when setting up your listings.
Why do I need citations?
Since they are still one of Google’s primary ranking factors they should definately be part of your arsenal. Think about it, the more a business is mentioned in conversation and on TV the more it gets ingrained in our heads, well the more Google and other search engines scoop up that data the more popular your site becomes and Google figures it must be pretty relevant.
Traffic Source
Many directories and other citation sources rank well on their own. Having your site listed there can help customers find you by searching for your keywords and getting to you through your citations.
Where is the best place to get website citations?
Many people think that only directory sites are good for citations. Sure you still want to find local and ones that are close to your industry but there are other places to get these that are often overlooked.
Press Releases
We personally love press releases as the main start of any online marketing campaign. They are a great source for backlinks and citations. They will have your company contact info in the bottom in perfect citation form as well as backlinks using anchor text that we use depending on your current backlink profile. Watch our videos and see what kinds of results these accomplish for our clients.
Articles and Guest Posts
Guest posts are a great way to get quality backlinks and citations for your business. Let us help build up your NAP profile. We write articles based on your niche and keywords you want to rank for. We post that article on high metric blogs or domains and they will have a link back to your site.
