Before I answer the question: “what is a local citation”, I ask you first this:
- What have you tried to grow your business?
- Are you still looking for converting customers or jobs?
- Is your website not ranking good and is your business listing still not quite good?
- Are you searching for ways to get your business discovered and ranked?
If you haven’t done that “SEO stuff” to rank your site yet, then one little step in the right direction is posting your business on local citations and business citations.
Then again? But what exactly is a local citation? How exactly can you use it for growing your business? If these questions are popping up in your head, then you are at the right place to find your answers to each one of them. Just stay here and keep on reading further because this article will surely prove helpful to you.
But first, hypothetically speaking: if you officially mention on your web page someone’s idea, picture, or any other data without mentioning the sources or without informing the viewers about the real sources, then this will be considered as an act of plagiarism and the ranking of your website will get affected. Plagiarism is a crime that’s why sourcing and giving proper credits is important. To avoid plagiarism, we use “Citations”. Basically, they are a reference, a tag, or a declaration that you have taken the proper permission to use the information of someone else. Did you get that? Now, what is a local citation?
What Is A Local Citation?
In simple words, when any company mentions anything about your company online, that is a local citation.
These mentions could come from any local business site, a blog, any big industrial site, any business directory, or from a renowned business. Basically, promoting a business is totally based on gaining the trust of the customers. Citations do that for you, they help to gain trust among a variety of customers and to get your business seen even in the local SEO results.
Although the local citations help you gain more trust and views on websites in local search results, they no longer are the same. But something is always better than nothing, so if you have just started your business then they are worth giving a shot.
Now, what should a local SEO citation include? Generally, a local SEO citation must include the full name, contact number, and the address of your business. The thing about local business citations is that they do not always include any link for your business website. But wouldn’t it be valuable if they included the links too?
What Do Business Citations Do?
Business citations or SEO citations provide all the sources of information of your business to Google and assist in ranking of your Google My Business local map. To rephrase it, citations introduce your business to Google and inform Google about your business. They tell Google that you have a business and your business is valid and legal. Now you know, why providing your name, address, and contact number to google and other such websites are important: to make them rank higher.
What Are The Different Types Of Local SEO Citations?
Generally, business citations are divided into two types, they are as follows:
Structured Citations
There are certain business listing directories where you can directly submit all the information about your business to get your citation. Moreover, when the information of your business is published on any business directory that is called a “structured citation”. Below, we’ve listed down some examples of the local SEO structured citations: 
Non-Structured Citations
Whereas unstructured citations are pretty much different from structured citations. When the information about your business is published on any other site that is not a business listing directory that is known as an unstructured citation. Unstructured citations can be found on blogs, wikis, magazines or newspaper articles, or any other informal site. They even publish half of the information and you know an effective unstructured citation must contain a link.
Why Are Backlinks Important For Citations?
When one website links to another website, backlinks are created. They are also called inbound or incoming links. Google uses backlinks to check all the information and credibility of the website. By using backlinks, you get the freedom to reach a well-established audience. Most importantly, it increases the authenticity, reputation, and visibility of your website. There are certain backlinks that are more important than others such as backlinks from reputed and popular sites are considered most important. This doesn’t mean that the backlinks from other less reputed and less popular websites are not-worthy. They’re worthy too but the former will benefit you more.
What Are Some Of The Most Important Business Directories?
Each and every business directory or business listings includes the alphabetical register of all the companies. After then, every single company is linked to its websites. Some of the most important business directories are Google My Business, Facebook Business, Yahoo Business Listing, Yelp For Business, and many more.
This was all about citations and how important they are for the growth of your business growth. We at St. Bernardine Media Digital Marketing help small businesses to get online exposure, website traffic, and digital presence through digital marketing and other services. We offer local citation services such as Google My Business citation services, Press release marketing, and other local citation services. These citations help you to increase your brand value and brand name. Besides, the best part of our company is that we deliver accurate results each and every day and our services are equally affordable to you. Most importantly, we do not make use of an automated system like other companies because that’s less effective. At St. Bernardine Media, we only build our citations manually.
We are probably the best and affordable choice you can make to build your brand value and website presence. We guarantee you the best services and growth of your brand. So why wait? Order services from us and we’ll serve you just like you say!
