You may have heard about the terms “local citations” or “local SEO”. In case you’re wondering what this all means, we are here to help you understand and succeed. Since a majority of businesses operate locally rather than nation or worldwide, local SEO is extremely important.
A local citation includes any linked or non-linked mentions of your business name, website, address, phone number and more. It all helps contribute to your local search engine optimization (SEO).
Citations are used to help rank your Google+ Local map listing (this was formerly called Google Places Pages) by providing Google with credible sources of information about your business in order that Google can understand your business exists, is legitimate and that what you say about your business is true and accurate by allowing Google to corroborate what is said about your business from multiple sources.
A Google citation, while sometimes a link, is a mention of your businesses name, phone number and address. In other words, a Google citation is more of a validation by the Google search spiders that your business is real and your NAP is accurate.
A common trust killer is when a local business changes locations, business names, or phone numbers. Google sees different information around the web and will penalize your listing by dropping it lower in the local search results.
In order to safeguard your business listings, we must first validate your listings against existing verified listing on either Google My Business or Facebook. We will work with the business owner to achieve a verified listing if they do not already have one.
Once we have a verified listing, CM Local sends your location information directly to our partner network, ensuring that your business listings are as correct, consistent, and as visible as possible across the web. Our partner first networks currently include:
* Five main aggregators of location data in US
Columba Max Local will also monitor your listings on Yelp, YP, and Hotfrog. We cannot manage these listing directly, however these sites update their listings based on the primary data aggregators we partner with.
