A local SEO citation is used by Google to to make sure your information on the web is correct. The more citations (naturally) you have the better. Here is what happens. Let say you have your Google My Business account setup and verified, but because you’re a new business, there isn’t quite as much trust in the information, even if it is a verified listing. To help validate the information is all correct, Google wants to see if there are other websites (citations) out there that support the same claim. There is something called the NAP, which stands for Name, Address, Phone number. Now back in the day, these would be considered more of linkbacks, but now these directory listings are considered both a citation and a linkback. You want these to be on high authoritative domain names, like Yelp, BBB, YP.com, Facebook, Manta, and many other directory site.

What Google does is crawl the web for more websites that have your information and if the information doesn’t match up with Google has on you or that you list with them on you Google My Business listing, you’ll get dinged. But, if everything matches up and there are plenty of authoritative matches you get some kudos on your local citations and more people can find you.

If you need help with this, please give me a call, shoot me a text or shoot me an email and we can discuss your goals more in depth and get your results to turn around in a good way.

To see a list of the top 50 citation sites, here you go.