Hyper Local Citations that Boost your Search Engine Rankings

Local SEO is crucial for consumer facing businesses, any service provider or venue with multiple competitors in their catchment area knows that often the first last and only place potential customers search is Google.

Ensuring that your local business is featured on as many business listings and directories will help enhance the number of citation sources that search engines find.

Core listings include services and websites such as google my business should form the foundation of your link building strategy. There are different ways to categorize local citations, we like to break it down in the same way that Moz does:

• Major Local Business Data Platforms
  These are major platforms that exist to publish this data, they include familiar ones such as Google Maps, Google My Business, Facebook, Instagram and Yelp.
• Geographic or Industry Specialisations
  Websites that are specific to your geographic area or based on the niche or industry you are operating in. This can include things like professional associations, industry associations or a local newspaper's website.
• Everywhere Else
  Citations can be created in many different kinds of other websites including maps, databases, directory listings and guides. These citations can either be submitted manually or earned via the respective site/organisation's policy.

Citations are Important

Citations are publications of your business information on the internet. They directly impact both new customer discovery and local search engine rankings. The knock-on impact of this can affect your Google Maps ranking also. Business information can include images, videos, coordinates, contact details, service/product information and website url.