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Harness the Power of Citation Management for Local Search Success

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Managed citations - there are dozens of sites that host business listings. One way or another, you need to manage those local listings.As a small business owner, citations management or local listings management can improve your online presence

Local listings are online platforms that list your business information.

Citation management, or local listings management, makes sure that this information is consistent and up-to-date across all online platforms.

Let’s explore the advantages of local listing management. That includes improving search engine rankings, increasing online visibility, attracting more customers, and building trust with potential clients. We’ll also provide practical tips on getting started with local listing management.

Effective local listing management can help you grow your business.

Main Benefits of Managed Citations

A successful strategy for managing local listings usually entails spreading precise and consistent business information across a wide variety of local search engines, directories, maps, mobile apps, and voice search platforms.

There are two ways to achieve this objective.  You can either do it yourself or use professional citation management services. In my opinion, delegating your citation management is usually the most practical option.

Want to see how you’re doing right now? Run a free scan of a subset of our network.

Citation management manages more than just your NAP.

NAP - name,address & phone - need to be consistent across all of your local listings and citations.Having your name, address, and phone number (your NAP) found widely and consistently across the web is essential for your SEO.

But remember that customers will look for things beyond your NAP, like business hours, online reviews, photos, services offered, and more.

Professional citation management generates robust information about you across all platforms.

Time- and labor-intensive

Manually managing citations is time-intensive and labor-intensive. We can help with that!Submitting significant amounts of business data to dozens of platforms and managing it can be impossibly exhausting of your time and attention.

But bad data out there in the wild can be very bad for your SEO, your visibility, and even your reputation.

Using high-quality citation management tools allows you to keep all data updated in one place so you only enter it once.

And you only need to update it in one place when things change. Keeping it in sync across the web is handled for you automatically.

Helping you reach the broadest possible audience

Enthusiasm is contagious.One significant advantage of our citation management service is the scores of places people can find reliable information about you.

To reach your customers across all types of platforms, you need an automated service. You can’t possibly manage all the listings we can create and support and still have time to run your business.

Managing citation changes

None of our businesses are stagnant. Things change. Addresses, services, holiday hours, and more need to be kept current everywhere.

With our citation management, you only need to worry about keeping one thing updated. We take care of the rest.

Maintain local listing NAP consistency

Bad data in business listings is damaging to you. First, to the impression it leaves with potential customers. Second with search engines, which need to trust that data to be willing to list you prominently.

We’ve seen accurate listings go bad with errant data from other sources. But our citation management alerts you to any potential changes and won’t let a change occur without your input.

Increased search visibility

Local three-pack example from a search for a local attorney. Showing up here is partially based on your local listings management.Your citations across the web are a critical factor determining whether you show up in the Local 3-Pack listings.

It’s true that proximity to the searcher is an important factor in whether you show up next to that map.  But your citations still exert a significant influence on that.

And while you can’t control where people are when they search for you, you can make sure your citations are helping you.

Can you manage your business listings yourself? Or do you need a managed citation service?

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Voice search is expanding

Citation management should make sure you're optimized for voice search. Our services make sure that's done right.People are using voice search more than ever, using the Google Assistant on Android phones and Apple’s Siri on iPhones, or Microsoft Cortana and Amazon Alexa.

According to UpCity, half of US consumers used voice search daily last year, including 58% of consumers aged 25-34.

Manually getting yourself accurately listed for these voice assistants can be a challenge without our citation management services. That’s because they’re not normal websites.  But we have connections to all of them right among our 80+ platforms.

GPS platforms are critical for brick-and-mortar businesses

GPS navigation works for you when the mapping app you use knows exactly where your business is.People are on the move.

When they’re out and about and are looking for your storefront, do you show up in their GPS platform?

They may be using Google Maps, Apple Maps, Bing Maps, MapQuest, Waze, TomTom, Navmii, in-dash navigation, and more.

Trying to make sure you’re listed in all of them and that they stay correct is tough without an automated solution. We can manage and oversee your GPS listings so customers can always find you easily.

Watch for reviews

Forbes finds that customers view businesses that take the time to address their concerns as being more trustworthy and reliable. That may be why businesses that answer or respond to online reviews convert 33% more searchers than those that don’t.

Make sure you know as soon as a customer reviews you online so you can respond promptly. Our citation management services alert you every time there's a new review ASAP.But how do you know when a new review shows up for you? You may monitor the big sources of reviews: Google, Facebook, Yelp. (Or you may not do that often.) But people review small businesses all over the place at sites like MerchantCircle, CitySearch, Trustpilot, DexKnows and many more.

With our citation management, the same connections that ensure your listings stay correct and consistent also monitor for reviews.

And whenever someone reviews you, we send you an email with a link so you can respond — promptly.

Manually checking for reviews at all these platforms is so difficult that I don’t know anyone who does it.  And when a bad review goes unnoticed and isn’t replied to, consumers assume the review is accurate.

Make your own informed choice

Do you have the bandwidth to manage all of this in-house?

Or does a managed citation service with automation make more sense?

Rank Magic manages citations for dozens of small businesses just like yours. If you’re unsure about it for your business, reach out for a free online demo of our citation management services.

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Should You Pay for Citation Management?

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Local business search rankings

Before exploring citation management, let’s see how it fits in to showing up on Google.

Where you show up in local search when someone searches locally for what you do or sell is a function of three main factors:

  1. Your overall SEO
  2. Proximity to the searcher
  3. Prominence

Much of the rest of my web site deals with overall SEO factors. And of course you have no control over where anyone is when they search. But prominence is something you can control by managing your online citations.

What are citations?

A citation is an online listing of your business on a platform like directories that publishes information on businesses and often online reviews. Here’s an example of a citation on Yelp, showing basic contact information plus other valuable material like business hours, reviews, images, and a call to action.

 

An online citation on Yelp.
Our own online citation on Yelp

The value of citations for establishing and growing your prominence is clearly explained by Google:

Prominence is also based on information that Google has about a business from across the web, like links, articles, and directories.

How much do citations really matter?

The folks at Moz conducted a study of 115,000 businesses to answer the question: Does listings management still matter for local SEO?

They tracked the results of maintaining listings on just the “big 4” platforms (Google, Apple, Facebook and Bing) compared to managing citations on these sources plus 10 or more directories. You can download the full white paper at the above link, but here are a few of the answers that question.

Improved visibility

Visibility as a function of increased number of local citations
Visibility as a function of increased number of citations

In this chart, Direct Search represents people who searched for a business by its name or address. Indirect Search represents searches for a product or service rather than for a specific business. Maps View represents searches on Google’s maps. And Search View represents the number of times a listing was encountered in the normal Google search.

A 91% increase in search views is certainly worth paying attention to.

Improved conversions

The impact of more citations on conversions
The impact of more citations on conversions

In this chart, were looking at not just the number of people who see a listing, but how many take an action moving them closer to buying. Clicking to initiate a phone call to a business didn’t increase by very much, only 13%. But clicking over to the company’s website to learn more nearly doubled. And clicking for directions to get to your business even more than doubled.

Should you pay for online citation management? Find out!

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How many local citations do I need?

Small business visibility as a function of the number of online citations
Small business visibility as a function of the number of online citations

This chart represents an attempt to identify the “sweet spot” in terms of how many local citations are best to have. I think it fails by not including more than 40 citations. That’s because we don’t know if the increase in visibility would improve even more with additional citations beyond 40. But certainly getting into the 31-40 range adds significant value compared to having fewer citations.

Why do you need citation management?

Isn’t it just enough to go out and get yourself listed in the top citation platforms?

Maybe not.

The folks at BrightLocal found that 85% of consumers found incorrect or incomplete information on business listings this year. Perhaps the worst example of that is that more than 80% went to a business only to find that it was closed despite their online citations indicating it was open. A full 63% said that incorrect listing information would prevent them from doing business with a store.

Online citations can change without your knowledge. Information about your business can change and you may neglect to reflect that in your citations. So is it enough to set up your citations and not worry about them moving forward? I don’t hink so.

Fair disclosure: I offer citation management services to small businesses, so it would be self-serving for me to insist that you need to hire someone (like, maybe, me) to do that for you. So instead, here’s how Moz answered that question.

How do your citations look?

With that said, if you’d like to check the status of your own online citations, there’s an easy way to do that right here. Just run a scan from the button below, enter your NAP data (name, address, phone) and see where you’re listed, where you’re not, and where your listings may be inconsistent.

Run a free scan

If you think your local citations need help, reach out to me for a quick conversation.

What are your thoughts about citation management? Do you agree? Disagree? Have questions? Let us know in the Comments section below.
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7 Reasons Citation Management Is Important for Small Businesses

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Citation management is an important part of the local SEO services we offer to small businesses. There are several reasons every small business needs to pay attention to this.

7 benefits of good citation management

Broad Exposure

Online business listings
How widely are you known across the Internet?

You need to make sure you’re listed and easy to find across the web at dozens of local search engines, directories, maps, mobile apps, and voice assistants like Alexa. This also helps Google, Yahoo & Bing to have more trust in who you are, what you do, and where you are.

Accuracy and Consistency

It can make sure your NAP (name address, phone) is consistent across all of those listings. Before working with us, a recent client was missing from more than a third of the top citation listings. Even worse, two listings had an incorrect address and 14 had their old company name. When this happens, Google has very low confidence in who or where you are. And that’s devastating to your chances of showing up in local searches.

Visible Reviews

Make it easy for delighted customers to review you.
Having reviews on multiple sites builds your reputation.

Having review stars show up in multiple places enhances your reputation. When you get a word-of-mouth referral, odds are that person will look you up by name before they call, just to check you out. When they do, your website should show up — but so will many of your citations, at places like Google My Business, Yelp, MerchantCircle, Facebook, and more. Some may show up that you’ve never heard of, like Clutch or TrustPilot. If all of those have review stars displaying in the search results, that increases the likelihood that person will want to do business with you.

Review Monitoring

We send our clients an email every time someone posts a new review for them. Responding to reviews promptly has been found to increase conversions and closed business. So it’s important to know about new reviews as they happen.

Suppressing duplicate listings helps search engines trust which is correct.
Suppressing duplicate listings helps search engines trust which is correct.

Duplicate Listing Monitoring

Duplicate and near-duplicate listings can confuse search engines, and that’s never a good thing. We alert our clients whenever we find a possible duplicate so they can check it out and suppress it if necessary.

Robust Business Information

Good citation management doesn’t just start with getting your NAP widely disseminated. All of those citation sources gather and reflect lots of information about your business:

  • Website and email links
  • Description of your business and services
  • Social media links
  • Business hours including special holiday hours
  • Accessibility information
  • Your logo and photos
  • much more
7 Reasons Citation Management is Important for Your Small Business

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Inclusion in Verticals

Google is getting better and better at responding to what’s called vertical search. Proper citation management will promulgate information that can help you show up when people search for specific things like

  • Wheelchair accessible dentist near me
  • Local restaurant with lasagna
  • Woman-led wellness coach
  • Veteran-led SEO company
  • etc.
Focus your info for search engines with structured data markup.
Structured data markup focuses Google on your essential information.

A Bonus

An added bonus to our citation management here at Rank Magic is schema code. That’s structured data markup in accordance with schema.org and it’s very helpful in terms of ranking highly in Google, Yahoo & Bing. We collect and maintain a lot of information about your business for your citations. That allows us to provide a simple script to add structured code to your website with a simple copy & paste.

How good is your citation management?

It’s easy to check! Just run a free scan to see whether your show up in about five dozen places across the web. And where you do show up, the scan will show your NAP and highlight any errors or inconsistencies. It will either give you peace of mind or demonstrate how badly you need citation management.

Run a free scan

Reach out if you’d like us to help put this into perspective for you.

Agree? Disagree? Have questions? Let us know in the Comments section below.

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How to Improve Local Rankings in Google

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Local search rankings are critical to local businesses

Increase your local search visibility on Google.

If you’re a local business, how you rank in local search can make or break your business. If you’re not showing up in Google when people search for what you do, your competitors are eating your lunch. That’s why it’s important to understand how to improve local rankings in Google and stay competitive.

It’s important to understand that there are two different local rankings in Google: the Local 3-Pack and the organic listings. The 3-Pack is the map with (typically) three local businesses beneath it corresponding to map pin icons on the map. The organic listings are typically beneath the Local 3-Pack and are the most common rankings customers consider.

These two parts of a local search result are determined by different local SEO factors. What’s most important to show up in the Local 3-Pack isn’t the same as what’s most important to show up in the local organic results. Let’s take them one at a time.

Google's Local 3-Pack for "near me" searches. To show up here, you need to improve local rankings in Google.
Google’s Local 3-Pack

Ranking factors for the Local 3-Pack

#1 Google My Business

This is the most important factor here. Critical to success here is making sure your category is correct, that your NAP (name, address, phone) is consistent with what’s on your your website, and that you’ve filled out as much information as possible. This may be the most important step you can take to improve local rankings in Google.

Related: Don’t Show Up Missing on Google My Business!

#2 Reviews and Citations

Positive online reviews are next in line. Make sure you have reviews on your Google My Business page. And not just review stars, but informational reviews; Google considers review comments important. 9 of 10 people trust online reviews. So does Google.Get reviews on a good number of other sites, too. Facebook, Yelp, DexKnows, SuperPages and CitySearch are good ones. Also any vertical directories you’re listed on.  You can suggest that delighted customers review at some of these places. You also need to monitor any reviews you get and respond to them whenever possible. A positive customer-focused response to a mediocre review can leave a very positive impression.

Related: How to Get Online Reviews

Citations that are consistent widely across the web gives Google confidence in your location and phone number. Consistency is critical because if a number of your listings have a previous address, some have a local number and others a toll-free number or fax number, Google isn’t confident which is right. If Google isn’t sure, it’s much less likely to rank you highly.

Related: Understand Common Citation Myths

The important secrets for your business to be found in local search.

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#3 On-page SEO

This relates to making sure your website is secure, fast, and thoroughly Google-friendly. Make sure keyword placement is appropriate so that Google can tell clearly what each page is all about, and studiously avoid keyword stuffing.

Related: On-Page Optimization

The better your link profile, the higher your domain authority - and the higher you'll rank in Google results.#4 Domain Authority and your link profile

Your authority across the web informs Google about how important your website is. A commonly used measure of this is the Moz Domain Authority. It’s derived from a number of factors, the most important being your link profile: the number and quality of other websites linking to you.

Ranking factors for local organic listings

#1 On-page SEO

This is the same as #3 above for Local 3-Pack listings. It’s just more important for your organic ranking. It’s clearly indispensable for showing up in both parts of the search results.

#2 Domain Authority

See factor #4 above under the Local 3-Pack.

#3 Behavioral factors

A number of behavioral factors can affect your organic rankings in Google. They include the following.

  • Click through rate reflects the number of searchers exposed to your listing on a search engine results page (SERP) who actually click on your listing. They have looked at your page title and description and concluded that it’s a good match for what they’re looking for.Google's Local 3-Pack for "near me" searches. To show up here, you need to improve local rankings in Google.
  • Mobile clicks to call are possible only for mobile searchers, since you can’t click to call on a computer. But when someone finds you in a search on their phone and clicks to call you, it’s a very concrete message to Google that your page is an excellent result for that search. The more that happens, the better.
  • Bounce rate is related to the click through rate. For either to happen, the searcher needs an impression – you need to show up on the SERP for their search. A bounce occurs when someone is on a SERP with your listing and clicks on you but immediately bounces back to the search results to pick someone else instead of exploring your site. That’s a negative ranking factor. They clearly did not like your page or determined it wasn’t a good match for what they were looking for. And Google understands that.
  • The longer someone spends on your site, the more Google assumes they liked what they found there.Time onsite is something that Google tracks and most people aren’t aware of it. When someone clicks on your site and stays there awhile, perhaps exploring additional pages on your website, that tells the search engines that your site was an excellent match for that search. The longer they spend on your site, the more good information they must’ve found there. That makes you look really good in Google’s eyes, and will help you rank higher in the future.

#4 Reviews and citations

See#2 under the Local 3-Pack above. These are important to your rankings in both the organic results and the Local 3-Pack.

To improve local rankings in Google, you really need to pay attention to every one of the above ranking factors.

[Updated 2/12/21 to include a link to an excellent  Forbes article about NAP consistency.]

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7 Keys to Showing Up in “Near Me” Searches

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If you own a local business, you need to show up in “near me” searches

Google's Local 3-Pack for "near me" searches.Google’s Consumer Insights has reported a 150% increase in “near me” searches in the past two years. A near me search almost always signals that the searcher is ready to buy a product or service. Think With Google reports that 76% of those result in a same-day in-store visit. Results are almost as strong for services like lawyers, plumbers, and landscapers.

Ideally you want to show up in Google’s Local 3-Pack, which shows three organic listings and a map showing where they are. Failing that, you want to show up in the organic listings beneath it and in the list when someone clicks “More places” at the bottom of the 3-Pack.

The 7 keys to “near me” visibility

Small business SEOClassic search engine optimization (SEO) is always essential to visibility in searches of any kind. But local SEO, which is needed for showing up in near me searches require some extra attention. Here are seven keys to improving your visibility in those kinds of local searches.

Most local searches are done via voice search on a phone.1) Mobile-friendly website

I always recommend a responsive website  so that the same content and experience is delivered regardless of the device visitors are using, whether computer, tablet, or phone. It needs to be mobile friendly with text that’s easy to read and buttons that are not too close together to be selected with a finger press.

You can check this easily with Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test.

2) Fast pages

With today’s microscopic attention spans and general lack of patience, many searchers won’t wait more than two or three seconds for your site to show up in their browser or phone. There are a number of techniques you can use to speed up your pages that are beyond the scope of this article. But there are some excellent tools that can show you what your page download speed is. And if it’s too slow, some explain what factors are responsible for that and offer suggestions to speed things up. Here are three that I like:

3) Effective Local SEO

Increase your local search visibility on Google.This involves clearly having your location or locations listed on your website. And not just on your Contact Us page. If you have a single location, it belongs in your footer so it’s on every page. If you don’t have a storefront but provide services at the customer location, describe your service area, both on your Contact Us page and, if it’s not too extensive, in your footer.

Some businesses create individual town pages for the most important towns in their service area. If you elect to do that, it’s absolutely essential to make sure that they don’t look like duplicate content to Google. Each page needs to be completely unique and obviously focused on the town it’s about.

Any place your address appears you should have schema code for it. Sometimes called structured data markup or structured coding, this is a construct cooperatively developed by Google, Yahoo, & Bing to help them better understand information on web pages. We explain it in our blog post entitled What is Schema Markup? How important is it for local business SEO?

7 Keys to Showing Up in Local and “Near Me” Searches

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4) Claim your business listings

The most important business listing for you is probably going to be Google My Business. Make sure to claim  your listing there and fill it out as robustly as you possibly can. Include things like business hours, your logo, photos, a description of your business, handicap access — anything and everything that Google My Business will accept.

Don’t stop there. You need a social media presence in at least Facebook and Twitter, and depending on the nature of your business and your target market, possibly Instagram and others. You need a listing on Yelp, Yahoo, Bing Places for Business, and LinkedIn. Other good listings would be Angi (formerly Angie’s List) and Judy’s Book, and there are plenty more good ones as well.

Vertical directories are another good source of listings. Depending on the nature of your business, you might want to be listed in places like FindLaw or Houzz. Caution – these are more likely than others to charge a fee.

5) Get more reviews

Positive Yelp reviews can help your small business.Online reviews can help assure Google that you are worthy of a prominent listing in search results. Start with Google My Business itself; asked a delighted customer or two if they would give you a review there.

More reviews are better, but only if they are spread out over time. If you get too many reviews in too short a period of time they may appear as though you purchased them or enlisted everyone in your family to write them, which is a violation of Google’s terms of service.

Don’t stop there. Get reviews on lots of sites. The more broadly across the web your reviews appear, the better your chances of showing up prominently in Google.

If someone gives you a word-of-mouth referral, the person they refer to you is very likely to check you out by looking you up. If they see lots of sites that show online review stars for you, it adds to your credibility and improves the likelihood that they will reach out to you.

6) Ensure broad and consistent NAP citations

NAP - name,address & phoneYou need to be everyplace your customers are on the web.  You should have listings everywhere you can.

These are called citations rather then links because some of them, like Alexa, don’t link to your website. A local citation is any online mention of your NAP. Citations can appear on local business directories, on websites and mobile apps, and on social media. They help customers  discover local businesses and can also improve your local search engine rankings.

One risk of widespread citations across the web is that older ones may have a variation of your company name, a previous business address, or an old phone number. That can confuse Google: if Google isn’t sure where you are, it’s unlikely to show you in local search results. If you don’t have the time to actively manage that, we have a service that can help get you that broad exposure and also ensure consistency across more than six dozen authoritative platforms.

It’s also critical to not only be consistent across the web, but also with how your NAP appears on your website. If you show a suite number across the web, don’t fail to include it on your website. Consistency matters.

7) Get geographically relevant backlinks

Backlinks are links from other websites to yours and are an essential part of Link building is essential to your authority on the web.all SEO efforts. Your website derives its authority or importance on the web based on the number of other websites that link to you and the authority they can pass along to you. And your authority is a critical factor in how high you rank in Google search results.

For local and near me searches, you should also have a good number of local backlinks.

  • If you belong to a local chamber of commerce, make sure it links to you.
  • If you participate in networking groups, make sure that they and the group’s members link to you.
  • Any local businesses you work with repeatedly ought to be linking to you and, especially those you’re in a referral relationship with.
  • And you can also get articles and press releases in local or hyperlocal news sources. That would include your local paper if they have an online presence, and other online sites like Patch.com and TAPinto.net.

Go Get ’em!

These are all things you can do on your own. As this is written, we are in the midst of the COVID-19 quarantine and many businesses have temporarily slowed temporarily. If that applies to you, use the extra time you have to go through these seven keys to showing up in local and near me searches and implement everything you can. That should position you for a faster recovery once the current pandemic ends.

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We welcome your thoughts. Please join us in the Comments section below.

If you run into difficulty implementing any of the above recommendations, give us a call. Rank Magic can help, even if it’s just giving quick advice over the phone or referring you to one of our strategic partners to help you.