Building Citations for your Business
Citations are a great low cost way to get your site better rankings on search engines. Other than the initial reporting you can do all this work yourself.
WHAT IS A CITATION?
A citation is a listing of your business, typically on a directory, somewhere online. Google used to call it a NAP (Name, Address, Phone number). There are about 30 directories classed as "must haves" so make sure you are on as many of these as possible. They will be listed in your Citation Tracker report.
HOW DO I FIND OUT WHAT CITATIONS I ALREADY HAVE?
We create a citation tracker report for new and exiting clients which lists all their citations online. This is a paid service and the cost of a report is £49. The report includes a list of all your current citations and links to each one in case they need updating. It also includes the citations your competition have and is a great tool to start your local marketing with. We can create additional reports for monitoring your progress for £19 as required.
WHY ARE CITATIONS IMPORTANT?
- They show your business in multiple locations online. For example on Google My Business, Facebook, Foursquare, Yell, Yelp, LinkedIn, etc. This helps drive traffic to your site but more importantly Google sees your business as higher profile and therefore gives your site a higher authority ranking.
- Although the listing will include your website address the links are usually "no follow" however these still have SEO value.
- Many of these directories have great Google ranking and therefore even a free listing will show when a user searches for your business or service.
- When someone searches for your business you will potentially dominate page 1 of Google, which will always impress.
- Your business will appear online in as many location as possible increasing your online presence.
WHAT INFORMATION DO I NEED FOR A CITATION?
We have created a local marketing document in Word that you can download here. If you complete all the fields you can then just cut and paste the information and you are ready to start creating citations.
We use the local marketing document because it's REALLY important all your citations are identical. If you have seen the example report you'll notice that some of ours have different phone numbers so we'll need to fix this.
CREATING CITATIONS
Using the above document you can start creating your citations. We recommend using one username and password for all your citations to keep it simple. We have created a very basic spreadsheet so you can record your citations as you create them. Then if you need to change or update them in the future you have all the information to hand. You can download the spreadsheet here.
WHERE CAN I FIND A LIST OF UK CITATIONS
Start at https://www.brightlocal.com/citation-builder/uk-citation-sites/ but if you do a search for "UK citation lists" you will see more resources.
GETTINGS STARTED
- Complete the local marketing document.
- Open your Citation Report. We will send you a link to the report online and the PDF.
- Check your current citations are all identical when compared with the document you have filled in. If they are different make a decision as to which version of the details will be used for new citations.
- Contact the companies that have your incorrect stations and get these changed. This can be hard work but it's worth it.
- KEY CITATIONS - Look at the first page of your report under KEY CITATIONS and start by getting these added. Click on the "+" link under ACTION on the right to start creating a citation.
- PLEASE NOTE: Some of these companies will call and try to sell you a paid listing. It's your call but I'd advise against this. Be firm and thank them for the call and listing.
- LIVE CITATIONS - Now check this list and make sure your details are correct. Any that are showing that you don't have click on the "+" and add them.
- COMPETITOR CITATIONS - Unfortunately the system picks your competitors and we can't change that but this is a good list to see what others in your industry are listed on. Again click on the "+" and add your business to any listing that's you are not already on.
- We estimate between 7 and 10 of your applications will result in a listing, nearly all of the important ones will be fine but some of the lesser known directories are often poor at getting you listed.
- PLEASE NOTE: If you are thinking about moving premises then I'd recommend doing this work once you've moved to save updating all your citations later.
DON'T WANT TO DO THIS YOURSELF OR DON'T HAVE TIME?
Alpha Tango offer four citation plans for our clients that include the initial report and monthly reporting. All we require from you is the local marketing document to be completed. We will help with keywords as part of these packages.
THE 6 MONTH PLAN for up to 60 citations
- Create an initial report and discussing the results with you.
- Creating or updating 10 new citations every month.
- Monthly reports
- COST £360 or £65 a month.
THE 6 MONTH PLAN for up to 150 citations
- Create an initial report and discussing the results with you.
- Creating or updating 25 new citations every month.
- Monthly reports
- COST £850 or £145 a month.
THE 12 MONTH PLAN for up to 120 citations (MOST POPULAR)
- Create an initial report and discussing the results with you.
- Creating or updating 10 new citations every month.
- Monthly reports
- COST £720 or £65 a month.
THE 12 MONTH PLAN for up to 300 citations
- Create an initial report and discussing the results with you.
- We need to ensure we can deliver 300 citations so at this point we might need to change the plan if that's not possible.
- Creating or updating 25 new citations every month.
- Monthly reports
- COST £1650 or £145 a month.
If you'd like a chat about this please get in touch. Alan Tomkins can be reached at 01333 329882, 07860 659076 or alan.tomkins@alpha-tango.co.uk
