The Importance of Citations

Why Should I Worry About Local SEO?

But first, here’s a quick reminder on Local SEO. Search Engine Optimization, or SEO is the process of setting up your website in such a way that you are easily found in Search Rankings. I’ve created this series to help you gain the knowledge to improve your Local SEO. Local SEO is a niche of SEO that focuses on your search ranking  within a certain geographical area.

The Key to a Thriving Online Business

I may sound like a broken record at this point, but building up your client’s trust is one of the most important things you can do for your business, whether it’s online, brick and mortar, or both. From a local coffee house to real estate development, your customers have to trust you and believe that you will give them the very best quality and customer service. That leads me to this week’s discussion. What if someone found your information on the internet and tried to email you but you never responded, or they clicked the website link and were greeted by a “404 Page Not Found” error code? Worse yet, they tried to call your phone number, only to find it was disconnected? That doesn’t convey much confidence in your business. In fact, they would probably move on to one of your competitors. Sadly, this happens a lot. If you search for your company, you may be surprised to see a list of online profiles in the search results. A good number of these profiles may be automatically generated business profiles. We last talked about these back in the second installment of this series “How to Claim Your Online Profiles”. If you did what you were supposed to and claimed all of those automatically generated profiles, then you’re already on your way to having this problem handled.

Now that you have all of these online profiles claimed and have access to them, you need to go through every single one of them and make sure the following items are identical in every profile:

• Name
• Email
• Phone Number
• Address (If applicable)

I know this can be very time consuming, but it’s essential for a few reasons. First, you don’t want the scenario I discussed above. If a potential client clicks a link and it doesn’t work, doesn’t hear back from you over email, or finds the phone number no longer works, they will move on and never look back. By having all of your information the same across the internet, you’ll ensure that potential customers will always have the opportunity to get in touch with you. The second is that when all of your Citations are the same, Google will see this as another sign of your authority. As a result, it will help increase your Search Ranking. Thus keeping all of your citations the same will help you climb the search rankings. 

Now, I know this can be a daunting, time-consuming task. Personally, I think it’s worth it to roll up your sleeves and put in the work. However, not everyone has enough time. If you don’t have time and don’t mind shelling out some money to get it done for you, there are websites out there that will help you. Just google “Citation Builders.” You’ll find a slew of online services who will help you, for a fee, of course. 

So in summary, make sure all of your information is identical across all of the different profiles where your company appears on the internet. This  will go a long way towards establishing trust with customers, while also helping your Google Search Ranking. I hope you’ve enjoyed the “How to Crush Your Local SEO” series. I created it to help you grow your online business, and have more to come in the future. As always, if you have any questions, feel free to contact me.

Till next time!