What is a citation in Local SEO?

A unique piece of local SEO is the concept of what’s commonly referred to as a citation. A citation is a mention of your business anywhere on the web with or without a link back to your website. For local brands, your citation is usually accompanied by the business name, business address, and business phone number or NAP for the short name, address, phone. A citation might include a listing in an online directory, the member page of your Chamber of Commerce, a business page on Yelp, or even a review on a blog.

Along with standard links back to your website and reviews about your company, citations are a primary factor that Google will use in deciding how to rank your business in its search results. Much like Google uses the quantity of high-quality links pointing to your website as a way of deciding your content must be valuable, it, too, uses the NAP to make the same determination. The real value of your citation is that it doesn’t require a direct link back to your business. Google is able to identify that the listing on the Chamber of Commerce website is about your specific company, simply because the address or phone number match what they have in their records.

In addition to Google passing along SEO value, the more high-quality sites listing your business information, the more people will see it, and thus, the more people who will contact you. Now, these listings don’t have to come just from directories and blogs. You can find value in receiving citations on forums, social media, press releases, question-and-answer websites, video descriptions, and even image alt tags. Instead of focusing on quantity, put your efforts into quality. A mention on a government website is far more valuable than a random website built simply to build links.

Reach out to websites that would benefit from listing your business. You might be surprised at how often you hear yes when you take a minute to ask. Now, some of this might feel like common sense, but the truth is a lot of your competition is not paying attention to these things. A citation might feel like a small detail, but when added to all of your other SEO efforts, it’s going to put you ahead of the curve.