Local SEO

Ok so lets start with the simple question.  What is a business citation?

Business Citations are what Google and Bing uses to rank your site in the three pack.  Three pack? What is a three pack?

In the Google Search results you will see this:

No doubt that you have seen then while you are searching the web and while you may have a listing here, there is a way to out rank your competitors by doing the following steps.

How To Rank Using Business Citations

1. Create a business citation – easier said that done, like everything marketing but you need to have the following information to create a citation.
   1. Business Name
   2. Business Address
   3. Owner Name
   4. Phone
   5. Website
   6. Category
   7. Keywords
   8. Logo
   9. Hours – Even if you don’t have hours put in hours
   10. Social Media Links
   11. Payment Method – fill out even if you don’t take payments
   12. Business Description
   13. Business Email
2. Ok now that you have all of that stuff, you just need to use this same exact information every time you create a citation (EXACTLY THE SAME INFORMATION)
3. The next information you need to find out is where to put your citation, I am happy to provide a list of places you can go to but you will need industry specific sites.  For example if you are a real estate agent then you should have a listing on Zillow, realtor.com, Trulia, homes.com same as if you where a lawyer findlaw.com avo.com lawyers.com.  I think you get the idea.

Here is a list of 150 citations that will work for any industry just remember that they all need to be the same EXACTLY the same

Here is a list of 150 sites to add your citation to:

Local SEO Directories

I know what you are thinking? Why would I waste my time adding my information to all of these site?  Google My Business and Bing Places crawl the internet and they find your business listings and match it agains what you have used for them.  The more citations that you have the better and the more your citations match each other the better ,this is why we want to match your citations exactly.

What else can I do?

The number of reviews is also a way to out rank your competitors as well.  Google uses their own review engine, while Bing and Yahoo use Yelp, so as you get reviews in the future make sure that you encourage your customers to leave you a review in one of those places.

Here is an article on how to make it easy for your customers to leave you a review – Easy Google Reviews