Are you having trouble attracting new leads? If you aren’t getting leads, that equals no customers. Could your company’s visibility be an issue?
Stick with me – according to a report on Business Insider, there’s a 50% chance that a new business will fail within 5 years. This doesn’t have to be your business.
A strong online presence can build a solid foundation for success. Hear me out. Investing in solid marketing for your business doesn’t have to break the bank, take up all your time, or swallow up all your resources. You can have a huge return on investment by building quality citations online.
What Are Citations?
You have a ground-breaking service or product, and you want people to discover you and become customers. You might wonder what’s a good starting point? A great place to start is setting up optimal citations online.
A citation includes an online listing of a business’ name, address, and phone number. This listing can include a link to the business’ website, or not. Adding a link will make your citation more valuable by giving search engines, like Google or Bing, an extra data point. Today, most consumers are going online to search for products or services, so they need to be able to find you.
Accurate citations can help your local business’ visibility. Citations can appear on local online directories, social media, and some websites. There are two forms of citations: structured and unstructured. Structured citations are the most common type of citation and belong to business directories, like Facebook and Yelp. You’ll find unstructured citations on blogs, news sites, job databases, and more.
Citations can impact your search engine rankings. Search engines can help generate a positive impact through increased credibility. Also, negative impacts become a non-issue if your citations are up-to-date and accurate. Still, the citation must exist on websites with high authority.
Why Are Citations Beneficial?
For citations to give you the most bang for your buck, they need to include your business’ name, address, and phone number. If your business’ citation misses one or two of these elements, your competition can outrank you.
It’s not enough to exist on tons of websites. These websites must be of high quality and relate to your company. Citations can help attract leads and convert them into customers.
Plus, citations help boost your business’ local authority. Build trust and you’ll gain loyal customers. The best way to establish trust is through a strong citation-building strategy.
Remember this – the search engines take into account three important factors:
- Amount of citations on the web
- Accuracy of citations
- Authority of the website hosting your citation
With purposeful consideration of the above factors, you can’t go wrong in your business citation-building strategy.
Where to Find Citations?
Again, citations ought to apply to your business. Many sites feature business citations, but they should be quality sites for the biggest returns. You can find many citation sites in Moz’s list by citation category.
There you have it, you have access to useful sites, to host your business’ citations. Believe me, you can build up your brand and reputation – one citation at a time.
How to Optimize Citations
So, you got your citations sprinkled all over the Web. What’s next? You ought to make sure that your citations are moving your business in a positive direction instead of a negative one. Accomplish this by making sure that your business ranks well in search engines through established trust and reputation.
Use these three simple steps to ensure your citations are optimal:
1. Make sure your name, address, and phone number are consistent on all sites.
Find all online citations. Make sure that your business citation details are correct on current and new listings. This is important if you’ve experienced recent changes to your business information details.
2. Pack your citation with valuable business details.
Include the basic information, like your business name, address, and phone number, but also consider linking back to your website. It’s better to include as many valuable insights about your business as you can.
3. Choose the best sites to host your citations.
Websites aren’t all created equal. The best course of action for your business is to choose high-authority sites. Also, you want your future customers to find you without a hassle. Consider the location, industry, and relevancy of the citation sites.
Use these simple steps to kick off your citation building strategy. If you don’t have the time, consider automating this process with a tool like Moz Local. Or better yet, hire a search engine optimization (SEO) expert to help you.
Wrapping It Up
Secure your business’ success through a strong citation presence online. Strong citations will guarantee that your business starts off on the right foot. Your efforts will pay off when your customers rave about finding your business – on all the sites.
Once your citations are optimized, you can leave it and forget it, unless there is a change in your business that you want people to know about.
About the Author
Brittany DeJohnette is a pharmacist and B2B writer. She enjoys creating tasteful and compelling content in the health and digital marketing space. Find out more about her here: Healthful Content.
