How to get citations?

You could ask for past customers for their review.... =)

Maybe this will help, have it in my notes.....



A citation is where your business name and address are mentioned (or cited) on another website. Citations don’t necessarily have links leading back to a website since many business owners don’t have website(s). Google crawls content across the web and anywhere they find a citation on your business they give you a point. A citation is a mention of your business name, address, & phone number.
I am not positive if some site’s citations carry more weight than others, but my guess is yes. I personally believe that with traditional SEO, not all inbound links are created equal. When it comes to citations the same rules apply. I believe some citations have more weight, that is most likely based on some Google Local algorithm similar to what is called TrustRank.


Trust Rank simply means some sites carry more authority and trust than others and if you have links or citations coming from these sites, then you are given bonus points which ultimately increase your rankings. So sites like the BBB.org or Wikipedia or Yahoo Directory may have more authority and so Google may give you 2 or 3 points for that. Again, the theme isn’t always about quantity, its also about quality.
There are tons of ways to get citations, from using directories to blogging, having your business listed on your Local Business Association Website, or mentioning your business on your local newspapers website. One great way is to look at your competition’s citations (currently, Google is listing them all) and see if you can get a citation from the same source. If your competition has a citation, then you will most likely be able to gain one from the same source. Use the obvious.

The goal with citations is to (obviously) have more than your competition, but much like link building, you want to be consistently dripping in new citations week after week. Build slowly and consistently. Play for the long haul.


When working with citations, one of the most important elements is consistency. Your DBA name, address, and/or phone number should never change. If you have different information, it can have the opposite effect you desire with your G-Map Listing. Even if you are thinking of using tracking phone numbers to monitor advertising/marketing efforts, I would highly recommend in this arena that you find another way to measure data if possible. I read that on a blog somewhere, I will try to find it.

Consistency is KEY from your citations.


I hope this helped a bit!

Here are just a few free business directories - great for citations for your clients!

BusinessFinder.com - Any Product, Any Service, Anywhere
Mahalo.com: Questions, Answers, How Tos and Coupons
City Guides by Citysearch
Business Yellow Pages by Mojopages
Company Profiles & Company Information on Manta
MerchantCircle.com | Find new customers.
Hot Frog - Your USA Business Directory
Insider Pages - Restaurant Reviews, Beauty Salons, Dentists, Preschools, Spas and more.
Business Directory | Free Business Listings | Businesses For Sale
Jigsaw Business Contact Directory of Business Contacts and Company Information

Ensure when you create citations your information is exactly the same every time. Don't change the format of your phone number, don't change how you abbreviate street, avenue and so forth. If it's all exactly the same you will get the citation credit.

Consistency is very important for citations. I like to use a service to make sure all submissions are consistent:

http://www.ubl.org

I'll then go in by hand to about 15 of the more popular IYP/directories and "claim" the business listing so the citation process get a good start.

The best way is for the business to offer an incentive and a link to where they would like a customer citation. (10% off your next order-we value your opinion>>>CLICK/Yelp<<<)

Yea, we actually have always done "hand submissions" for a lot of reasons, but mainly because we can "claim" the listing and make sure there are consistencies with all the listings, while making sure the marketing message is fluid throughout all the listings. So if the client offers a 10% discount, a picture of there building/truck/etc., and they have a solid background about the company, it stays congruent for all the listings we do hand submissions. Of course, their is the added bonus of Google loving it.

UBL is more for the tiny directories and other listings we don't ever plan on getting the client listed in, like the GPS directories. It's worth the $50 to me.

never try it , but i learn new thing now

I have a question. How do you claim these various citations with the business owners phone number without them knowing your process or method? I mean, if I teach them how to do these things themselves then I am kind of making myself irrelevant. What do you guys do?

@Tiger_Claw
I don't beilieve you claim them using the business owners phone. I believe It's something you can do on your own.

It's very important to find out which citations are highly valued for your particular niche. You can do this by simple looking at where the top listings have their citations. It might not get you all the way but it will get you started with the most important citations.

As an easy top 3 citations to target in any niche (at least in US), go after these:

Insider Pages
Super Pages
Yelp

As noted above, citations are just mentions of your basic business info, ie. Name, Address, Phone #, Webiste, Email, etc on other sites.

I agree with a previous poster that UBL is worthless. Been there, done that AND you don't have any control over the listings they actually DO make =(. They say you can make changes, but it takes FOREVER and is sketchy at best.

I use a list of about 50 different Business Directories for my citations. What the heck, the more the merrier, right? =)

For a one time fee of $75 I get these citations for my current clients who need some extra boost with ranking their GP listings. I've seen others charge an initial fee of $200+ and recurring of $20-100/month to "keep the listing" current =).

Simple stuff and a great/easy upsell for a lot of other services.

Rob

What an awesome post. I've read not-so-great reviews of UBL but I believe there is another dependable company for outsourcing citations. Now I can't find the post and neither can I remember the company name. I do think it's much more expensive than UBL.

A quick question: it's my first time with citations so perhaps I'll do some manual submissions just for the experience. I'm catching that we are suppose to use the same data/info for all these submissions (same phone #, same address, etc) but do they require an email address? And what about claiming those submissions? Anything extra I should know?

Is WhiteSpark used to find best citations for your niche/area? Is the paid version much better/easier to use?

Thanks everyone.

I agree with adriver38 and Brian Anderson as Google likes different review sites for different niches.

The hardest thing is getting the clients to leave reviews to post to the review sites.

Always try to input canonical data you want your all of your business profiles to contain.

One method that isn't discussed as much is to create events (be creative) on your site and third party sites. You get the dual benefit of authority backlinks and placing your citation. If the OP is interested, I will pass along a video tutorial course I did on the subject for my subscribers. Just PM me.

CT

If you use Whitespark tools you start to see some really great (and easy) citations to get... Dailymotion videos, YouTube videos, Metacafe videos... all easy and powerful.

You should also put together a comprehensive list of niche directories and local directories in which you can list the business.

One thing I will caution people of... do NOT use something like scrapebox to blast a bunch of citations. This will hurt your listing. Slow, steady and "manual" is the name of the game.