Posted by
Nevyana Karakasheva
Local businesses are all about local rankings. The local SEO game is a bit different though. While the organic strategy for higher rankings is focused on attracting high authority inbound links, with local rankings the weights of the ranking factors are distributed among additional elements.
Take business citations, for instance. They are an essential local ranking factor that is not a typical success element in the organic ranking toolbox, but are a huge thing to consider by local SMBs targeting potential customers online.
So What Are Business Citations?
Business citations shape up your online business card: they list your business name, office address and phone number, and usually come in the shape of business directory listings.
Depending on the given business directory they belong to, they could be local citations (listings that are created in business directories, specific for the area you serve: a city, neighborhood, region), niche citations (listings in directories that are dedicated to a specific industry like home maintenance, legal, medical) and generic citations (such that are part of a broader business directories that are not limited to a single location or industry).
How Business Citations Impact Local Rankings
First, you should be on clear terms with how your business citations could either boost your local rankings or drop them to the ground.
Your citations have huge power that you should put to a good use. Their potential is hidden in the information they carry. If your business citations quote your correct up-to-**** Name-Address-Phone (NAP) information, they build up a strong profile for your business. The higher their number and authority (the authority of the business directory they belong to), the greater the boost they give to your business.
On the other hand, your citations could turn against you, if they are inconsistent, i.e. if they quote varying NAP data.
Giving search engines, Google especially, mixed signals is never a good thing. If only a small portion of your business citations are carrying your correct business NAP data and the remaining ones list outdated, mistyped or incomplete data, then you’d most definitely feel the devastating impact of that citation inconsistency. Your local rankings will take a nosedive along with your daily customer calls and sales.
Citation Consistency? – Come Again?
Understanding citations and citation consistency is a tough one, I know. Fortunately, if you are at least a little bit of a geek and a sworn Star Wars fan, who has enjoyed the most recent episode of the epic saga, you’d easily figure it all out.
The following infographic Local SEO Wars: Episode I. Citation Inconsistency Awakens, created by OptiLocal, illustrates in detail:
- what citation inconsistency actually is;
- why it is detrimental to your business online visibility and
- how your business fell victim to it in the first place.
Let’s see how this Star Wars parallel could help you better understand the intricacies of local SEO.
Three, two, one … the curtain unfolds:
In “Internet space” you fight on a daily basis for online visibility for your business. However, it turns out that you have left without an army of devoted soldiers. Your local rankings are suffering because all of your business citations have gone inconsistent.
Now imagine that your business citations are the stormtroopers from Star Wars: when they are inconsistent, they are all brainwashed, loyal to the dark side and are a sure threat to your cause.
Your goal is to regain your army, to turn the stormtroopers (your citations) to the light (correct their outdated/inconsistent NAP data).
Remember how in Episode VII – The Force Awakens, Finn is the only stormtrooper to turn to the light? Well, that’s your role model – you need to strive to turn all the stormtroopers to your cause. That is, if you have a single citation with correct NAP, you most definitely need to try and fix all the inconsistent citations. IN OTHER WORDS YOU NEED TO “FINN YOUR CITATIONS”.
Citation Inconsistency Cannot Be That Bad!
Really? Are you OK risking your online visibility out of mere negligence and laziness? You need to realize what’s really at stake here.
In high tech days like these, your search engines rankings are vital for your sales and lead generation strategy, especially if you are a local business. If you rely on Google for your target customers to find you and choose you before your competitors, you need to play by Google’s rules.
Having inconsistent citations won’t help. If some of your citations list your business on Baker Street and others on Paddington Street, Google might have trouble working out the conflicting data. The search engine might create duplicate profiles (Google local pages) of your business and, for instance, split your business reviews among the two. That would be quite misfortunate, especially if you had a hard time gathering those positive reviews from real satisfied customers.
The ghastly effects of tolerating online inconsistent citations could be quite a few, but they all boil down to the following: Google will perceive your business as being of low authority and will reflect this by suppressing your local rankings.
How Did My Citations Become Inconsistent in the First Place?
Do you need to ask? Chances are if you have never audited your business citations that there are at least a few citations that misrepresent your business. Of course, there are some common reasons leading to citation inconsistency that include: a change in one or more of your NAP elements (business name, address, phone), building business citation without any knowledge of the importance of citation consistency and using toll-free and tracking numbers on your website when creating your business citations.
If you have, by any chance, indulged in one or more of the above-mentioned practices, then think of the brainwashed stormtroopers that are ready to raid your “planet” on the Internet and try to Finn back your citations!
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