How Important Are Citations in Local SEO?

Local citations have slightly decreased in importance as a ranking factor in local SEO, as can be seen by comparing the 2017 Moz Local Search Ranking Study with the previous year’s study. Despite a slight decline as a SERP (Search Engine Results Pages) ranking factor, local citations are still far too important to overlook, and there are many business listing sites with high DA (Domain Authority) that can help with local search visibility.

Additionally, the goal posts have been moved somewhat with local citations. Instead of having as many citations as you could sign up for (and pay for, as many aren’t free), the goal is now to focus on a few key business listings, like Pure Local, and ensure NAP (Name, Address and Phone) consistency.

Any business that wants to rank for their most valuable keywords still needs to create keyword-rich content, optimise both on-page and off-page elements, and ensure their business is physically located in the city of search. But they should also ensure NAP consistency across the most important citation sites, especially Google My Business.

Google My Business – Don’t Do Business Without It!

It’s so important to have a Google My Business page that you should forget all other business listing sites (for the moment), prepare all your key information, check it for accuracy and then spend as long as it takes to create a GMB page that truly represents your business at its best. Along with local business schema (structured data mark-up that helps search engines understand your business), GMB is a key source of information that Google draws from for Knowledge Graph, its knowledge base. What’s more:

• GMB feeds into Google Maps which shows potential customers how to find you. Even if you operate a mobile business, having your address displayed in Maps increases customer confidence.
• Uploading photos of your business increases trust signals and has been proven to give businesses a noticeable edge over those which haven’t. Images can also help with your SERP rankings.
• Encouraging customer reviews and interacting with customers by responding to comments has been shown to enhance customer trust and confidence. And it’s viewed favourably by Google.

If you haven’t yet claimed your Google My Business page, do it now. It really is the most valuable of all business directory sites, including Yelp and Local Search, but you need to ensure NAP consistency or your grand plans could go terribly wrong.

NAP Consistency – The Most Important Aspect of Local Citations

Yes, we began this article by discussing the slight but noticeable decline of local citations as a ranking factor, but we did also mention just how important it is to focus on the key directories and ensure NAP consistency across all the directories you list on. In fact, many SEO experts state that NAP consistency is the second most important ranking factor after proximity in search location.

NAP consistency means your business name, address and phone number are consistent across each platform listed on, which seems simple, but when you’ve listed on tens or even hundreds of sites, it’s easy to make errors. The NAP information uploaded to directories should always be consistent with the one on your website footer.

As a leading provider of SEO Services in Australia, we can reliably inform you that if your NAP information is inconsistent, Google may view your business as non-credible and hit your rankings where it hurts. If you have lots of citations, consider using a local citation finder tool to check for NAP accuracy and correct any errors immediately.

Quality Over Quantity – Choose the Best Citation Sites

These days it’s important to be picky with citation sites because not all are created equal, in fact, some can actually be disadvantageous to list on, so choose quality over quantity when building local citations. A good rule of thumb here is to only list on sites with a strong Moz Domain Authority (25+), and always check if the name of the directory ranks. If a site doesn’t even rank for its own name, it’s not worth listing on, and definitely not worth paying for. Keep your citation profile clean and Google will love you for it.