What Are The Best Places To Get Citations From?
According to Google, 97 percent of consumers search the Internet first for products and services. Many consumers want to see what is available locally before a decision to purchase is made. The creation of Google Places has helped many business owners, niche website owners and offline businesses to be found on Google for free. Reputable citations online do not have to be hard to come by if you know the requirements and where to look. Getting citations is one more way that your website can increase search engine positioning and reach more potential customers.
What are Citations?
Before getting into where to find citations, it is best to understand exactly what a citation is and why it is useful. Citations are just like pieces of information that are used in the scholastic and academic world. Brief mentions of a name or entity help readers to identify the source of the information. Getting a citation for your website is no different. The use of your niche website name and contact information by online websites, directories or lists can help improve your search engine positioning in targeted local search results.
Why are Citations Important for SEO?
Many Internet users prefer to shop local companies and buy products or services when possible. The safety factor is always a concern for consumers. It is much less of a hassle to purchase from someone in the local area instead another region of the country. A quick search of a niche keyword can quickly bring up a listing of websites that are displayed in the geographical location of an Internet user. Most users trust the information that is provided in these lists and are known to visit these websites first. Unlike SEO content that may change, online citations remain a consistent source of your website and business information.
The Best Places to Get Citations
Newbie Internet marketers spend the time to obtain citations manually. This includes visiting every directory and entering a business name, address, telephone number and email address. This is tedious work and serious Internet marketers can spend time more wisely. There is a helpful tool available to help you get citations and find out the citations being used by your biggest competition. Whitespark Local Citation Finder provides up to 245 citations for each keyword or phrase. This citation finder makes it easy to keep track of your citations and helps you to build local traffic.
Benefits to using this local citation finder:
• Finds Citations in 38 Countries
• Competitor Search Analysis
• Creates Grouped SEO Project Citations
• Average of 245 Citations for Every Keyword
• Export Citations to a Spreadsheet
• Track Old and New Citations Instantly
The research time this tool saves is very valuable to your SEO campaigns. A single keyword or phrase can be entered into the online interface. An approximate listing of keywords and related keywords are returned to you making it effortless to select the most valuable keywords that have the most citations online. This saves time when you can target the phrases that are used to find you online and create marketing around them. Successful Internet marketers have mastered the art of local search optimization using citations. Getting as many citations as you can will improve your page rank and expose your products or services to more Internet users.
Tips to Know When Managing Your Citations
The information that is included in a citation must be accurate and include basic information about your website and business. The basics include what is known as NAP or name, address and phone number. For citations to be effective, business information should not change between citations. As an example, adding your business name and address to an online directory is great, but forgetting to include your phone number may hurt your verifiable citations.
Google, Yahoo and Bing look for exact information before verifying citations and allowing the results to be displayed in user searches. Knowing what information that you have being cited at all times will help you to coordinate a local search marketing campaign correctly. The information that you submit must stay current across all of the directories and websites that provide your citations. Correctly managing and growing your online citations will increase your local search results.
