Online marketing and SEO experts believe that local citations are as important as SEO for geo-targeted marketing. Essentially, a local citation is the mention of your business information. They need not necessarily be elaborate details about your business. Simply mentioning the name, phone number and address in different places on the web works as effective local citations. The industry often refers to this information as NAP (name, address and phone).  Why are local citations so important for local businesses?

1. SEO

Local citations play a major role in securing a higher ranking for your website on search engine ranking pages. In fact, evaluation of citations is embedded into the ranking algorithm. Experts suggest that local citations could weigh around 25% in ranking value. So, naturally, the more the number of local citations, the more influence to increase your rankings on search engines.  The key is having a consistent NAP, that it always matches.  So be careful when using abbreviations, whether it’s LLC, Ltd, etc.

2. Visibility

Citations increase the visibility of your business on the internet. This increases the chances of your target audience finding your business more frequently when they search for a related business.

3. Branding

In order to make the most of citations, you need to get your business registered in local directories or some reliable organization such as the Chamber of Commerce of your region. How does this help? It builds trust and credibility for your brand, which in turn provides a huge boost to your branding efforts.

4. A Competitive Edge

Citations give you a definite competitive edge in the industry. Businesses that have citations are likely to receive more customers because more and more people these days rely on the Internet to find information about local businesses. By optimizing on citations, you can definitely create a better position for your business.

Read more information explaining why local business citations are so important. Sprout Media Lab is here to help with any questions you might have. Call us at (800) 617-6975 for a free consultation on your website or for help with local citations.