Few Easy Steps to Build Local Citation

If you are going to launch a website and you are not thinking about local citation building, you are omitting an important measure to success of your company. Basically the term local citation is related to build your local search engine ranking. The fact is very clear if you are not visible in your local area how it will be possible to get more business and prosperity. Local Citation has become an initial strategy of a business, but there are several measures which are to be undertaken to implement the same fruitfully. Here are some tricks that can make you more prominent in the field:-
  • 1. Search Engine Listing: - Proper listing will increase your business relevance and to implement the same you should have to be listed on several pages. There is no doubt that Google is the king in the field, but make sure you are listed on other sites like Apple Maps, Yahoo Local, Bing Press, etc. The search engines like Google or Bing use their own indexes to register your business name, location and website and this information are corrected and placed according to their own measures. The business entrepreneurs should have to be involved in a citation building campaign to ensure that they are well enrolled in the local search engines and other business directories.
  • 2. Other Preferred Sites for Listing: - There are other preferred sites where business listing is indispensable for local search ranking. These are like Data aggregators, Horizontal directories, Industry specific directories, Region specific sites, etc. As for example in USA, there are many aggregator sites like Infogroup, Acxiom, Factual, etc. the indexes used by these sites are stressed upon phone books and banking records, business group memberships etc. In India the preferred directories like Akash Laila, Just Dial, etc can be mentioned. Most probably you have to use the industry based blogs and directories, so that the search engines can easily enlist you in the index.
  • 3. Local Blogs and Directories: - Blogs have been always considered as a fruitful medium for popularity. If your business name is mentioned in the city blog or local blog, it will be considered as a relevant and trusted search result. But, how this will be possible. You have to make continuous interactions with such blog with topic related to your business emphasizing your locality.Likewise local directories are also well indexed by the search engines. In this regard human edited directories are more stressed as they carry least of spam. You can use your city or local directory for citations.
  • 4. Make a Precise and Accurate Citation: - You have to remember always that the value of links in the listing is just to strengthen the association of a website. Citations are just a collection of name, address and contact no. It will be quite unnecessary to mention links in the citation as the value is evaluated by the citation only and not by the links. These agendas are generally prescribed in almost all of the sites. Try to analyze them well before listing.
  • 5. Always evaluate your citations are either mass or not. Try to fix the unnecessary ones as they naturally grow with other listing sites. Make your publicity genuine and precise.
  • 6. If your competitor sites are on a paid basis on a business listing you have to follow the same. If you opt for free, it will be a bad impact on your business reputation.
  • 7. Keep in mind about the duplicate listing and try to fix them.
  • 8. If your business listing is claimed by someone else, try to fix the same by sending feed back to the site owner. In other cases if you forget your password or have other issues, you must re-launch you listing and try to remove the older one.
  • 9. Before building any kind of citation you must follow the guidelines of Google that in near future you have not to redo the implementation.
  • 10. Sugar Sync:- Always keep backups of the citation details and log in info of several sites along with the additional information that you have already used or wish to use in future in the sites. Otherwise you will not be able to edit or make changes in near future. In this concern you may use the cloud service of Sugar Sync that will make you enable to keep a record of files across computers and other devices for file back-up, access, etc.
  • 11. Make sure before citation that you are not listed on the site.
  • 12. Always use USPS zip coding system to provide actual location of your business activities.
  • 13. Many business use different official corporation name. Before citation you must evaluate what your official or legal name and search for the same in the listing. 14. Always use a unique E-mail id in the process. If you have any queries in future this id will help you connecting the domain.
  • 15. Google MapMaker: - This is for duplicity reason. If you want to check the duplicate listing with the same name, Google MapMaker will guide you. It will also provide you the contact numbers.
  • 16. Don’t be worried about the least factors while giving your address. This will not harm your ranking. Just be consistent while providing your NAPW or name, address, phone no and website.
  • 17. Unreliable features of the sites: - If you have listed your site once in a specific location, it is fine. If you change your location and going to enroll again on the same site, please check if the earlier listing exists or not. If the earlier one exists then fix it or not then launch the new one. Most of the sites like yellow pages or yelp are not carrying the features to determine such things. Check it through Google search by using your business listing keywords.
  • 18. Always try to mention categories available on the listing site.
  • 19. Make an audit of your site at least once in a month. To search unwanted matters do not rely on the free scan tools. Analyze well whole the citation process and determine which are ok and which are to be fixed.
  • 20. Always try to use a strong password having at least 8 characters. The passwords set in the different sites should follow a rhythm. It makes the process easier to remember them.
  • 21. Do not be tensed about NAPW that how it is shown by the listing sites. If you have written Avenue in the dashboard and Google is showing the same as Ave, do not have to change or edit the same. The reason is that each site has several formatting rules and the search engines are strong enough to determine that Avenue and Ave are the same things.
  • 22. Do not make your process of citation too fast to list your data on all the sites. It generally takes time to be listed on all the possible sites. There is no credit how quickly you have made a citation, but the matter is that how accurate it is.
So these are all about citation building which will constitute your active presence in the local search. Try to implement the same and experience the outcome. Do not forget to leave your response.

About the Author: Anirban Das

By Professional qualification a Computer Engineer, By Profession an Online Marketing Strategist and Web Application Development Expert, By Industry position working as a CEO at Zebra Techies Solution!

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