Citation Building For SEO

• Citations
• Digital Marketing
• Google My Business
• Google+
• Internet Marketing
• Local SEO
• Small Business Center

An effective SEO marketing campaign incorporates a range of tactics and strategies to increase your business’s ranking on a search engines results page. Although each tactic varies in the return value produced, each individual component provides you with additional exposure and increased odds for a prime spot on a results page. Citations are among those key factors used for determining and boosting local search engine rankings. Citations are seemingly small references to your business, but they deliver great value to a successful SEO campaign as they provide search engines with certainty and assurance about your business information. Essentially, they help associate and confirm information about your company across the web. By building proper citations in conjunction with other key SEO techniques, you can benefit from better search engine rankings and consequently generate site traffic and potential clients.

What Is A Citation?

Citations refer to specific mentions of your business throughout the Internet outside of the direct listing on your website. A simple solitary reference to your business name can be classified as a citation, but the most effective citations will include company name along with more specific contact information such as an address, phone number or any other individually identifying information. Citations can commonly be found on online directories or community business indexes. Depending on the nature of the third party website, citations can further include more detailed business information along with pictures or links to your website. Citations can also be found on alternative sources outside of directories such as blog posts, press releases, member pages for industry associations, or question and answer sites to name a few.

Components Of Effective Citations

Businesses with an increased number of citations throughout the web will most likely rank higher than businesses with a minimal number of citations. Citations however are most effective with the integration of a few key components. Variations in business names can be seen throughout the world, so without distinguishing information, a citation will not provide your company with individual results.

1. Business Name: It is impossible to have citation referencing to your business if you don’t include your company name. Business name is obvious, but it is important to know what wording or variations will affect you and which are not worth worrying about. If your business is being mentioned by an outside party, there is the chance that they will not mention your exact business name. Slight variations in business name will not affect you negatively if address and phone number match. Google and other search engines have trusted algorithms in place that calculate data by three main points: name, address, and phone number. When two of these points match, Google is easily able to make the connection to your business. So, if your business name is Nevada Heating, Cooling, Plumbing and Electric, but you’re referenced as Nevada Heating and Cooling or Nevada Plumbing and Electric, search engines will triangulate the name with contact information and correctly credit your listing.
2. Contact Information: This is another obvious one that also has small variations not worth worrying about. Search engines can recognize and associate an address to the correct business even when there are slight discrepancies. Individual sites may list an address in varying order. Some may require a suite number while others do not. A missing suite number will not negatively affect your ranking. Because variations in street names or spelling mistakes are so common, search engines are more concerned with the location marker of your business than the exact address listing. This doesn’t mean you should not attempt to have consistency in the address mention of your citation, merely that there is no need to stress about a negative impact from slight variations. A phone number is a piece of information that you should always strive to maintain consistency. A phone number is probably the most important identifier for your business and one that search engines place high importance on. An incorrect phone number or an incorrectly associated number can misdirect potential customers resulting in negative user experience and ultimately result in negatively affected ranking.
3. Complementing Information When Possible: A citation at its core only requires a reference to the business name, address and phone number, but having additional information attached to your citation can be beneficial. When possible include a link to your website, mentions of key product or services, or even pictures to attract attention.

Things To Remember About Citation Building

• Citations are an extremely beneficial component of an SEO campaign, but citation building is something that takes time. Proper on-page optimization is by far more important that citation because that will generate site traffic before you can build a significant citation impact. Citations should not be the only back-linking tactic in your SEO marketing strategy. Backlinks such as brand mentions, local sponsorships, and third party mentions or promotions are also beneficial. Effective SEO comes from comprehensive implementation of techniques.
• Citations should not be overlooked however, regardless of the number of citations you may or may not have. Anytime or any way your business is mentioned across the web, your business will benefit from the exposure. Consistency from citation information and mentions will play a role in boosting your search engine ranking, which ultimately brings in more site traffic and business.
• A solitary listing on Google My Business does not qualify as a beneficial citation. It is beneficial, but it is more like the title to an article: important, but without complementing information means nothing. Effective citation building requires more than a search engine listing, it requires listings across the web that will complement and affirm that core listing.
• As mentioned earlier, a phone number is the most important piece of information on a citation and requires the most consistency. Phone numbers can often be reassigned after an owner is no longer using it; this can result in a business holding a phone number that once belonged to someone else. Customers calling a number expecting business A but finding business B will negatively impact you. If you are experiencing this problem with your business, make sure that any mentions of your phone number are only connected to your business.
• Citation management is worth budgeting for. Citation building and citation maintenance requires time and attention to detail. Old data can creep in and affect the efficiency of a citation, which requires corrections and cleanup. Paying for citation management is a worthwhile expense. 1 Source Media Group in Las Vegas has critical industry experience and insight necessary for citation management that will boost rankings and positively impact business. With 1 Source Media Group, you personally will not have to worry about discrepancies in citations or incorrect information across sites. They have years of experience that will provide your Las Vegas business with only the necessary steps for effective citation building. You can trust 1 Source Media Group with every aspect of your SEO campaign even down to individual mentions of your business across the web.