Citations for Local Search

Citations are the Life Blood of Local Search Optimisation

What is a Citation?

A citation is just a mention of your business on any third party website. In the context of Local search it is your Business Name, Address and Phone number (NAP).  What is important here is consistency; your NAP must be the same across all occurrences for maximum effect. My NAP is shown below:-

Rich Sale and Partners
12 Dennis Green
Gamlingay
Sandy
Beds
SG19 3LQ

01767 654878

The important things are the Business Name, First line of the address, postcode and phone number.

Now Google is quite smart so it will recognise that Limited can be abbreviated as Ltd., Beds is the same as Bedfordshire. However it really makes no sense to try and test this unless you have no choice. I always get clients to agree the consistent NAP for their company and then ensure that this is used everywhere moving forwards.

Don't Make it Harder Than it Has To Be!

Before you agree a NAP get me to check what exists already. It is really difficult to get some directories to change your information and even when they do it takes 'forever' to flow across all the citations. So I can run a simple test to see what your most consistent NAP is before you make an arbitrary choice. Obviously if it's wrong then it must be changed. But if it is something simple like a Building Name (Mine is also called The Old Fountain) think long and hard before you choose to use it.

What are these third party sites for citations.

There are many sites out there. But things like yell.com, yext.co.uk,  thompson local, cylex.co.uk .......

We know which ones carry more weight and can get your citations listed to maximum effect.