If your looking to boost your local search rankings, you need to ensure your business is mentioned on quality sites in your area. The 10 sources below are often overlooked or ignored. Your previous SEO may have found the citations too hard to get, or didn’t give them the credit they deserved. If your building citations – these 10 sources will make a solid start.
1.) Blog Citations
Blog citations are some of the strongest citations you can get. If you have a local restaurant, reach out to foodie bloggers in your area and offer them a free meal in exchange for reviewing your restaurant. Let them know that their review doesn’t have to be positive, but it should contain your business name, phone number, and address. The business name, address, and phone number can be casually mentioned through the entry and will still appear as a citation.
2.) TheCityOf.com
TheCityOf.com is overpriced for what they offer business owners, but their free listings are a great citation source and they have decent rankings in many cities for various industries. Visit their main website, TheCityOf.com, and see if they have a site in your area.
Tucked away at the bottom of the page, you can find instructions for emailing them and requesting a free listing. The free listing won’t get you a link to your website, but the free citation is solid.
3.) Local Chamber of Commerce
Links and citations from your local chamber of commerce carry influence. A business that is involved in their local chamber of commerce is likely a quality business, not a fly by night operation.
4.) Local news sites
From local magazines to your local newspaper – getting your business mentioned in the news can greatly increase your authority. This should be a no brainer, but most businesses in competitive industries are not mentioned on a single local news site. Getting mentioned is easy, here’s 4 quick tips:
- Monitor the news for situations you can help resolve
Example: Your a plumber, and there’s a story on the news about a family left without running water because of *insert news worthy event*. Call the news agency reporting the story and let them know you would like to help, and if they can put you in contact with the family. - Offer local scholarships
I see a lot of family medicine and dentistry offices getting mentioned because of scholarships awarded annually to “active” or “cavity free” young patients. The scholarships don’t have to be huge. - Create press releases
Did your company/employees spend time supporting a charitable event or do anything even slightly news worthy? Put it in a press release.
5.) ServiceMagic.com
Industries: Home Contractors
Many service companies at one time or another have tried leads from ServiceMagic.com. Regardless of any past experiences with them, you can get a free listing on their site and Google currently uses them as a citation.
Visit this page: http://www.servicemagic.com/directory/ to create a listing.
More local citation tips
- Find localized websites offering free business listings using searches like:
"Your City" "Your Industry" Directory - Do you sell a companies parts/equipment? Check their website and see if they list dealers – these links/citations can be valuable for both rankings and real leads.
- Find blogs in your industry and give them a reason to post about what your business is doing. Are you serving crazy cuisine no ones ever done before? Have you implemented environmentally friendly construction techniques? Share your experiences with influential blogs in your industry.
- Check local news websites – most of them have a directory you can list your business in for free.
- Make sure you are listed with major data providers like Acxiom. UBL.org (Universal Business Listings) offers submission to major data providers and general yellow page submission. Most Local SEO’s I know submit with UBL.org before they start with real optimization – and ensures companies are eventually included in GPS databases
Stay tuned for more Local search optimization tidbits!