A business citation is a reference to your business from another online source. This citation in ideal cases include Business Name, Address and Phone Number ( NAP ). These can be linked via your business name or just referenced without an actual link to your site.

To benefit your local SEO strategy, you should always keep your NAP information consistent across all your own properties. The more consistent the information is across the web, the better the citation flow.

 

How do Local Citations Work?

Local business citations are an important factor for search engines in deciding how important your site is locally and where to position it within localised search results. Combined with other links to your site and reviews about your site, create a powerful signal to search engines.

Google has hundreds of different ranking signals, but when it comes to local search results ( xyz in Northamptonshire ) that is referenced 20 times in exactly the same way, reinforces that this business exists, it is locally mentioned and Google can be confident in showing this business for a local search result.

 

Starting Point for finding Local Citations

Local business directories are the easiest starting point for citations. I generally start with a search by County.  Northamptonshire then I take four of the next largest towns / cities. In my case :

Business Directories: Northampton, Wellingborough, Kettering, Corby.

Check to see if there are any dedicated directories to your specific business : Type of Business Directory Northamptonshire, depending on your niche you may find some super relevant to your specific business type.

 

UK Business Directory List

 

 

Tips:

• Create a new email address just for you outreach, you don’t want emails clogging up your main inbox
• Dont link to a site that wants a link back.
• Keep all your NAP information the same.
• Do not copy and paste your business description, write something great for each site.
• Keep it relevant, dont go looking for random directories to add your site to

 

London Business Directory Citations

 

 

Northamptonshire Business Citations

 

View: Northampton Citations

 

 Corby Business Citations

 

View: Corby Citations

 

 Business Citations for Leicester

 

View: Leicester Citations

 

Other Citation Sources

 

• Trade Association
• Chamber of Commerce
• Social Media Business Profiles
• Profile Pages on websites you contribute to
• Trade Reviews

 

Research Competitor Citations

 

Have a look at your competitors citations to see where they have been mentioned, reach out to these sites for inclusion.

 

Take your time finding relevant sources for a local citation. This is not about ranking your site based upon citations, this is about building trust and local relevance signals.

 

Find & Correct Duplicate & Inconsistent Citations

 

For your Local SEO campaign to work, having consistent and correct business citations is at an all time high for ranking in Google locally. According to Moz local search ranking survey, having consistent local citations comes in at position 3, so it essential that you find and correct any duplicate and inconstant citations.

If any part of the NAP information found on an external site is incorrect, Google may not pass the credit onto your business.

This local citation resource combines some of the best ways to find and correct any inconsistencies in your NAP citations

Read About: Local Citation Audit

Read About: Business Citations FAQs