Additionally, with \u2018natural<\/em>\u2019 organic link building being so difficult for local businesses that tend to shy away from having unique content to link to, citations are an even more important part of your ranking toolkit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So before we get stuck in, let\u2019s make sure we\u2019re all on the\nsame page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I promise not to make this too high level, but let’s clear up a few common misunderstandings first. For the purpose of this guide, a citation is simply an online reference to a business entity<\/strong>, that typically (but not always) contains <\/p>\n\n\n\n And in the case of directory citations, may also contain <\/p>\n\n\n\n This is where the term NAP<\/strong>\ncomes from, short for N<\/strong>ame, A<\/strong>ddress, P<\/strong>hone N<\/strong>umber. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Apparently, NAPN<\/strong> wasn\u2019t as catchy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you\u2019re familiar with SEO, you\u2019ll know that for years Google has used backlinks as a primary method of determining how valuable a particular web resource is. By looking at the number of links, and the authority of the pages those links come from, the Google \u2018brain<\/em>\u2019 can figure out which results are trustworthy and which ones aren\u2019t. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When Google ventured into local search, that same model had a few flaws. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Think of your typical local business like a dentist, or a local builder. It\u2019s highly unlikely they\u2019re going to have a significant number of backlinks to their site from a bunch of well trusted resources \u2026 unless they paid one of those \u2018super-legit<\/em>\u2019 guys who send you an email claiming to get you a backlink on Forbes, Huffington Post or Inc.com.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because local businesses tend to not attract a lot of (natural) backlinks, they needed another system of \u2018voting\u2019 or, another way to determine One of the ways to solve this problem was to use citations<\/strong> as opposed to typical backlinks, mostly because citations already existed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many local businesses already had multiple citations \u2013\nlistings in directories that verified the businesses name, address and phone\nnumber. The more verifications Google could find, the more likely it was that\ninformation was correct, and that the business was legit too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So this gave rise to citations being the ‘new backlink’ for the purposes of local SEO. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A citation will typically have a Name, Address and Phone\nNumber but this isn\u2019t always the case. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A structured citation<\/strong>\nis one that tends to follow this format and usually, is the type of citation\nyou\u2019ll find on business directory sites like Yelp or the Better Business\nBureau. <\/p>\n\n\n\n On the flip side, there are unstructured citations<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s a bit of a grey area on the web between different sources about the exact definition of an unstructured citation, and whether it needs to contain a link (we think it does<\/em>). <\/p>\n\n\n\n You could argue these are a category of their own \u2026 but ultimately, they\u2019re just plain \u2018ol backlinks. These tend to exist in social media profiles, local blogs or event guides or as links in press releases and company announcements. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Unlike a typical backlink, a\ncitation doesn\u2019t need to have a do-follow link back to the company\u2019s site to be\nvaluable. In fact, a structured citation doesn\u2019t really need a link at all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The true value in citations are\nthe mention of a business which search engines and aggregators use to verify\nthe accuracy of information they probably already hold. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Citations matter because they directly affect local search. Local\nsearch matters because that\u2019s where a business\u2019s potential customers are (or\nsoon will be) looking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Take a dentist for example. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When someone is looking for a new dentist, they\u2019re most\nlikely to do one of the following<\/p>\n\n\n\n While, citations can\u2019t help directly with number 4), they\nwill affect visibility for 1), 2) and 3).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Citations aren\u2019t everything; local organic and map pack rankings are influenced by a large number of factors ranging from reviews<\/a><\/strong>, to keywords to the user\u2019s proximity to the searched for business, but they do play a key role. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Remember how I mentioned citations were like a vote of trust\nfor a business? <\/p>\n\n\n\n Well the accuracy of that business\u2019s details in those\ncitations makes a huge difference. Let\u2019s go back to the core tenet of a\ncitation, N<\/strong>ame A<\/strong>ddress and P<\/strong>hone\nnumber. <\/p>\n\n\n\n These details should be consistent across every citation\nthat appears on the web; this part is more important than people realize. It\u2019s\nprobably the most common issue found when businesses do a local audit. They\nhave different (note \u2026 different, not\nincorrect<\/em>) variations of their company name and address in multiple places,\nand this often hurts their local online marketing efforts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There are a few theories floating around about why consistency\nis so important. Personally, I believe the simplest one is the most likely. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Imagine you have two citations <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Stark Industries, and<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stark Industries Inc, To us mere humans, the two addresses relate to the same\nplace. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We’d expect the company who has a \u2018moonshot\u2019 department \u2026 the same company who were working on self-driving car technology over 10 years ago to be able to know these are the same places, but technically it\u2019s not that simple. Google play a game of trust and user experience with its local results. The results you see first tend to be the ones that Google\nhas confidence in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Confidence that they exist, they\u2019re legit and that the\ndetails are correct. It can only know this by the number of other sites (structured\ncitations) that have identical details. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Going back to the two Stark Industry addresses above, from a machine point of view, they\u2019re very different.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Google will try to match every business location to a numbered entity (i.e. your Google my Business \/ Places listing<\/em>) and it does that by comparing text. In a world of 1s and 0s, if the majority of citations fail to match accurately, it can\u2019t be certain that the information it holds is correct as it doesn\u2019t have enough sources to verify it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Eventually, it\u2019s likely NAP consistency will become a thing of past when Google scales the process of having certainty that two businesses with slightly different names, one at \u2018301 \u2013 399 W 41<\/em><\/strong>st<\/em><\/strong><\/sup> Street<\/em><\/strong>\u2019 and the other at \u2018301 \u2013 399 West 41st Street<\/em><\/strong>\u2019 are the same business. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But until then, consistency is everything and this is the\nfirst thing a good citation campaign should do; correcting inconsistencies on existing citations<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There seems to be a lot of noise about duplicate citations causing major damage to your local SEO efforts. I think this is often poorly explained which causes confusion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If you had two identical citations on the same site, it\u2019s highly unlikely this would have any adverse effect on your SEO. But then, most directory sites go out of their way to avoid duplicate listings, so the chances of this happening are slim to none. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And if it did, either both citations would be taken into account and they would count as one, or one would be ignored with no harm done. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When people refer to the danger of duplicate citations, they\nusually mean two citations on the same site with slightly different details.\nOur Stark Industries example above is a good one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Because the company name is technically different (one has Inc on the end<\/em>), a directory that doesn\u2019t match on phone number (which isn\u2019t uncommon, as many chains often have the same national phone number<\/em>), wouldn\u2019t necessarily know these businesses are the same unless it manages to normalize the address. Even then, it’s possible two businesses exist at the same address as is the case with many business parks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The real danger in having duplicate citations is that you\nactually have inconsistent citations<\/strong>.\nIn this scenario it\u2019s easier and better to remove one citation than to fix\nboth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This is the second thing a citation campaign should do \u2013 remove duplicate citations<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n People often see their own site as the system of record – the main source of correct information that everything else feeds from, but this isn\u2019t the case. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In a Google dominated search environment, your Google My Business<\/a><\/strong> (GMB) profile is probably the primary source of information on your business\u2019s NAP details, which means you should ensure everything on your \/ your client\u2019s website matches up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This means treating the address on a homepage \/ footer \/ contact pages like a citation, but a super valuable one; it should match the exact format that you\u2019ve decided on (and use on your GMB profile<\/em>) and be consistent across your entire site. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Previously, best practice for including NAP details on a company\u2019s website was to include a marked up version in the footer so it appeared on every page. Having the details marked up, simply meant including markup (HTML text) around the address details that\u2019s invisible to humans looking at the page, but visible to search engines to help them understand how to structure the data. For example <\/p>\n\n\n\n This \u2018sort of\u2019 worked, but was a pain in the ass as it\nrequired you to edit the actual text on a web page. For more fragile layouts,\nthat might have caused issues. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There are a few recommended markup formats out today (e.g. Microdata or RDFa), but the current favourite seems to be JSON-LD<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The beauty of using JSON-LD to include address data on a site is that you can keep it completely separate from your HTML. <\/p>\n\n\n\n More importantly, it can be injected after the page has loaded, making it easier to add JSON-LD via third party plugins and widgets (which therefore means better adoption among non-technical users and people using WordPress<\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n JSON-LD is implemented using Schema.org vocabulary; a joint effort by all of the large search engines to create a unified language to read data on web pages. JSON-LD is effectively just a key and value pair of\nattributes, that tell the search engines specific information we need them to\nknow about the business. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Unless other formats like Microdata, JSON-LD can technically\nsit anywhere although it\u2019s best to put it in the <head> tags of a\ndocument. It can be inserted statically (literally added to the code of a site\nas part of the page\u2019s HTML) or inserted dynamically after the page loads via a\nscript or plugin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can use our Business Address JSON-LD generator<\/strong> to generate your NAP markup, and insert the code just before the closing <\/head> tag of a site. <\/p>\n\n\n\n While a citation campaign is often where local SEO starts,\nit\u2019s far from being a one-off task.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Citations need to regularly checked and audited because<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fortunately for us, this is where machines can do the heavy listing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Most citation services will regularly scan and check the validity of the citations a business has online. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The first thing to understand is that not all citations are\ncreated equal. In fact, we use \u2018citations\u2019 as a broad term to cover a number\nof different online reference types.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These are citations that fit our NAP model, or at least they\ntend to contain structed data. It\u2019s also important to note that here, a\ncitation doesn\u2019t need a backlink to be valuable. It\u2019s about the data being\naccurate and present. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Structured Citations exist in a few formats:<\/p>\n\n\n\n These companies have a business model of selling data. They rely on us to submit our clean, accurate business data to them \u2026 then they sell it back to us and other companies (to market their services to us<\/em>) at a premium. AKA, the perfect business model.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The problem is, the main aggregators are too large to be\nignored as they supply data to a number of mapping services, in-car navigation\nsystems and search engines, including the big G themselves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the US, the four main players are<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the time of writing, only InfoGroup allow you to submit your details<\/a> free of charge. Neustar charge an annual fee and both Factual and Acxiom seem to have moved towards only working with selected partners as of 2018. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Search engines like Google and Bing maintain their own location and places data partly to aid with creating their mapping products, but also to have a better understanding of the real world. Google My Business<\/a> is likely to be the main focus for your local search efforts, and it will allow you to claim, update or add your business details to Google\u2019s index.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Technically, as Google My Business<\/strong> seems to be the main hub of local activity, it\u2019s technically not a citation \u2026 it\u2019s the main source that uses all the others as citations back to it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Business directories are the Pareto principle at work. The majority of the results, importance and volume tends to be found in just a few of the general business directories. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The main directories to focus on are <\/p>\n\n\n\n Depending on the business\u2019s location, there may also be some geo-specific directories that are somewhat important too, such as Yell.co.uk<\/strong> in the UK, or TrueLocal<\/strong> in Australia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Most verticals have review sites specific to a particular\nindustry. These sites are important, as in addition to giving you a citation,\nthey also help with discovery as a large percentage of a business\u2019s clients are\nlikely to search there too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some good examples are Lawyers.com<\/strong> and Avvo<\/strong> for legal professionals, Edmunds<\/strong> for auto dealerships, TripAdvisor<\/strong> and OpenTable<\/strong> for restaurants and bars or WebMD<\/strong> for the medical industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition to giving a citation and extra opportunities for new customer discovery, you also benefit from customer intent. The type of customer using these directories tend to be highly motivated to buy and at the \u2018bottom of the funnel<\/em>\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Recently, the print industry has failed to sustain itself\nthrough print advertising. Newspapers have shifted their focus online, only to\nrealise that online advertising is a tough game to crack too! Many have started\nlooking for ways to boost their income by increasing page views. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Online local directories have often replaced what used to be\nclassified listings found at the back of the newspapers, and give you a\ncitation with added local semantic value. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Many newspapers syndicate business listings from another\nsource, be it their own database that feeds all the local versions of their\nnewspapers or an independent aggregator. <\/p>\n\n\n\n These sites scrape data from many of the places listed above in an attempt to do basic click arbitrage. For the most part, these are pretty low value domains. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In short, don\u2019t bother. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s probably not worth the time in listing your business here,\nespecially as they will likely scrape the details from a more credible site\nanyway. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Trade association websites provide industry specific citations from pages with high domain authority, although this is usually at the cost of membership to the organization. These are a frequently overlooked source of high value\ncitations. The cost deters people who assume all citations should be free (then go on to pay for low value backlinks on\na spammy blog \u2026 go figure<\/em>). <\/p>\n\n\n\n With most of these sites having a basic membership that\ncosts less than $200 per year, the benefit often outweighs the cost, especially\nin more competitive industries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Similar to industry specific directories, they also have the\nbonus of being a potential source of highly motivated leads, lending\ncredibility to the business. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The search industry still seems unclear over where the line\nis drawn between something being an unstructured citation versus it just being\na backlink. In geek terms, we don\u2019t technically know whether they exist\nindependently, or whether one is a subset of the other. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Most sources we\u2019ve come across seem to use the term unstructured citation as a way to generate new content around the time-tested topic of link building, giving it a local spin. Some experts argue that a mention of your business (without the backlink) is enough to provide value, but we’re sceptical. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A structed citation can have value without a backlink (especially when the NAP has been marked up with microdata or JSON-LD<\/em>), but it\u2019s unlikely that a mere company mention would provide any form of value over all the noise that currently exists on the web. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The logical argument to back this up, is that a search\nengine would have no idea of knowing which company was being referenced without\neither a link or an address and phone number. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For the purpose of this guide, we\u2019ll refer to unstructured citations\nas any reference to a business (regardless\nof whether or not all the NAP details exist<\/em>) with a backlink to the\nbusiness\u2019s website \u2013 follow or no-follow. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For a B2C product business, offering \u2018review samples\u2019 to\nlocal bloggers or the editorial team behind area guides is often a good way to\nget quick links.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some area guides will maintain active directories or lists\nof providers and things to do in different categories, so it may be as easy as\nsubmitting your details through a dedicated page. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Profiles on sites like Twitter or Quora will often let you\nadd the company\u2019s details in the bio, along with a link back to the website.\nMost of these links tend to be no-follow, but arguably, they still act as a\ncitation of trust for local businesses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Press releases offer easy to obtain (but relatively low value) backlinks. For a typical local business with little content ranking for their brand, this can be a way to control what people see for brand name searches, especially if the majority of existing SERP results are negative. When asked this question we always think about the story with tiger. <\/p>\n\n\n\n To not be eaten, you only need to run faster than the person behind you. Also, being able to recite a parable as an answer to a question makes us feel super smart. The point here is that volume is always relative to the competitive landscape. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For a competitive industry and area – like Realtors in Manhattan<\/strong> for example, the chances are<\/p>\n\n\n\n Compare that to something like a local ironing service in a small UK town. A good number of those businesses still don\u2019t have their own website, yet alone established citations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In this situation, citations from the top 30 sites will usually be enough to rank well, coupled with consistent positive reviews, and well completed Google My Business profile. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Citations alone will rarely be enough to see results<\/strong>, but how many citations always comes down to competition in the local area. The more competing businesses = the more creative you\u2019ll need to be in finding (unstructured) citations to gain the edge. It\u2019s likely that if you\u2019ve read this far, you\u2019re already\naware of the many choices you have for building and managing citations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The unfortunate reality is many people using citation services are unaware of the pros and often hidden cons<\/strong> of the service they\u2019re using. This can have serious consequences further down the line, especially if you do this on behalf of clients. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This is as unsexy as it sounds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s you, a spreadsheet and many hours filling forms before you slowly lose the will to live! If you\u2019re on an extreme budget (or you have no budget!) then your only option may be to manually build and manage your citations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This will usually involve<\/p>\n\n\n\n The issue with structured citations is that they can change.\nClaiming a listing will give you some control, but it won\u2019t prevent duplicates\n(and in some cases, minor user edits) being made. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The advantage of managing citations manually is obviously cost;\nmost structured citations are free to obtain. You also have full control over\nthat profile which means it\u2019s less likely that something will change at some\npoint down the line. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The cons \u2026 try this for just one location and you\u2019ll see for\nyourself. If you love repetitive, detail-oriented form filling then\nthis could be the activity for you. For everyone else, it\u2019s a tough job to do. <\/p>\n\n\n\n On the opposite end of the citation management scale are automatic solutions offered by companies like Yext<\/a>, and now some of the major data aggregators too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Yext are currently the most prominent operator in this\nspace, and they have a partnership with many of the main structured citation\nsites (search engines and aggregators) to push data to them on your behalf.\nThis is great for major brands with hundreds of locations to update in 10s \u2013\n100s of places. A manual solution just wouldn\u2019t be feasible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In exchange, they charge a recurring annual fee of\napproximately $300 – $400 per location per year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The pros of this is obvious; changes are almost real-time\nand only one update has to be made to see that business\u2019s details appear in\nmultiple places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is a huge downside\nthough<\/strong>, and many people fail to see this until it\u2019s too late. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Because companies like Yext charge a recurring fee, you\u2019re\ntechnically not paying for the citations to be corrected or created. You\u2019re\npaying for protection. If you keep paying, everything works well. When you stop\npaying \u2026 not so. <\/p>\n\n\n\n While Yext haven\u2019t publicly admitted to deliberately overwriting citations when a user stops paying, there are several reports<\/a> of outdated, incorrect data appearing the moment the service is stopped. It would seem that citations and listings are all restored to their original state when you stop paying for the service. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In other words, you never really own those correct listings;\nyou just rent them. If you have clients, this can result in an embarrassing situation if you ever stop paying or decide to run with another solution. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Most clients would reasonably expect that work they paid for should remain even when they no longer use you. Trying to explain that you didn\u2019t do it as a malicious act of petty revenge for them ceasing the service with you may not go down so well \ud83e\udd2c<\/p>\n\n\n\n In our experience, the best citation management services\ntend be hybrid ones, that take care of the manual work but don\u2019t tie you into a\ncitation that results in issues should you stop using their service. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Hybrid services will usually:<\/p>\n\n\n\n From an agency\u2019s perspective, hybrid services will also give the most control. Where automatic services will charge a lump sum to create 100s of citations (some of which may have very little value), here you can often choose and pay on a per citation basis, choosing specific citations to fit your campaign needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The two most prominent services offering hybrid management (without a recurring annual commitment) are <\/p>\n\n\n\n Assuming you\u2019ve already taken care of the business\u2019s website (yep \u2026 that\u2019s technically a citation too), the first step is to decide on what type of citation work needs to be done. Building citations for a new business versus an established one are two quite different practices. <\/p>\n\n\n\n New businesses are generally far easier to build citations\nfor, and involve identifying the most valuable citation sources for your\nindustry and prioritising those first. On the flip-side, most established\nbusinesses tend to already have at least a handful of existing citations\nalready out there, so your initial focus should also be about claiming, correcting\nand cleaning up the profiles that already exist in addition to building new\nones. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For the most part, building new citations (manually) is simply\nabout finding the link to add or submit a business and filling out the required\ndetails. It\u2019s the filling out details part that gets pretty tedious. <\/p>\n\n\n\n You can make the process less painless by using a brower plugin to recognise the most common fields and fill in the details for you. Do a search for \u201c[Insert Your Browser here] form filler plugins<\/em>\u201d and you\u2019ll see several options appear for almost any browser. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Be sure to check the input before you submit though; these\nplugins work by reading the names of form fields so it\u2019s not an exact science\nif those fields aren\u2019t named logically. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The chances of being spammed once you make a submission are close\nto 120%, so it\u2019s often good practice to create a separate email account to\nforward confirmations too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If you\u2019re doing this on behalf of a client, you might also\nwant to use a service that\u2019s not on your domain (e.g. a free email service) so\nyou can hand the account over to the client if they don\u2019t want their own email\ndetails associated with the account. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Remember that for the more valuable directories, you also need to complete phone verification, so you\u2019ll need to pre-warn your client and ask them to send you the verification code. You should have a single source of record for NAP information \u2013 usually the business\u2019s own website or their Google My Business profile, and ensure every<\/strong> citation matches that format of address and phone number precisely. In time, this will become less important as search engines are easily able to identify two addresses written differently as the same entity, but for now let\u2019s play it safe. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Check all of the details you\u2019re submitting or correcting match and are consistent. This includes the categories you choose for the business too. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In 2020, what most agencies understand about citations is already out of date. <\/p>\n We break down EVERYTHING you need to know about citations for local seo, to compete in even the most crowded industries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":706,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[53,51],"tags":[54,56,15,55],"yoast_head":"\n1) Local Citations 101<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Way back when \u2026<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"Totally](\"https:\/\/optimumfeedback.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Screenshot-2019-01-28-at-09.59.09.png\")
a) if a business was real and
b) how trusted that business was. <\/p>\n\n\n\nStructured vs Unstructured Citations<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"Structured](\"https:\/\/optimumfeedback.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Screenshot-2019-01-28-at-08.48.12.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n![\"Unstructured](\"https:\/\/optimumfeedback.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Screenshot-2019-01-28-at-08.51.28.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nDo Follow vs No\nFollow vs No Link at all<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
2) Why Local Citations Matter<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
3) Taking NAPs<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
301 \u2013 399 W 41st<\/sup> Street,
Midtown East
New York 10036
(212) 555-5555<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
301 \u2013 399 West 41st Street,
NY 10036
(212) 5555555<\/p>Who knew all those years playing Where’s Waldo<\/strong> as a kid was just training to be great at spotting NAP issues as an adult.<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
If you ask for a shoe shop, and it takes you to the wrong place you\u2019re unlikely to use Google Maps again. Worse still, if that shop had closed many months ago you\u2019re unlikely to trust any future results you see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Local](\"https:\/\/optimumfeedback.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Screenshot-2019-01-28-at-10.05.35.png\")
Duplicate Citations<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The business\u2019s website is a local citation too<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<span class=\u2019street-address\u2019>301 \u2013 399 W 41st Street<\/span><\/code><\/p>\n\n\n\nSo, let\u2019s not get too\ntechnical but \u2026<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Here\u2019s an example of how our fictional Stark Industries company would look in JSON-LD markup:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\">\n{\n \"@context\": \"http:\/\/schema.org\",\n \"@type\": \"ProfessionalService\",\n \"name\": \"Stark Industries\",\n \"image\": \"\",\n \"@id\": \"\",\n \"url\": \"https:\/\/ironman.com\",\n \"telephone\": \"(212) 555-5555\",\n \"address\": {\n \"@type\": \"PostalAddress\",\n \"streetAddress\": \"301 \u2013 399 W 41st Street\",\n \"addressLocality\": \"New York\",\n \"addressRegion\": \"NY\",\n \"postalCode\": \"10036\",\n \"addressCountry\": \"US\"\n },\n \"geo\": {\n \"@type\": \"GeoCoordinates\",\n \"latitude\": 40.7566026,\n \"longitude\": -73.99029589999998\n },\n \"openingHoursSpecification\": {\n \"@type\": \"OpeningHoursSpecification\",\n \"dayOfWeek\": [\n \"Monday\",\n \"Tuesday\",\n \"Wednesday\",\n \"Thursday\",\n \"Friday\",\n \"Saturday\",\n \"Sunday\"\n ],\n \"opens\": \"00:00\",\n \"closes\": \"23:59\"\n },\n \"sameAs\": \"https:\/\/twitter.com\/iron_man\"\n}\n<\/script>\n<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nBack to citations,\nit\u2019s an ongoing process<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
4) Where to get citations<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Structured Citations<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Business Data Aggregators (aka Local Data Aggregators \/ Local Search Data Providers) <\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Search Engines<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
![\"Local](\"https:\/\/optimumfeedback.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Screenshot-2019-01-28-at-10.22.30.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nBusiness Directories<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
![\"Business](\"https:\/\/optimumfeedback.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Screenshot-2019-01-28-at-10.28.56-1024x817.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nIndustry \/ Location Specific Platforms<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
![\"Industry](\"https:\/\/optimumfeedback.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Screenshot-2019-01-28-at-10.30.43-1024x817.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nLocal Newspaper and Press Websites <\/h4>\n\n\n\n
![\"Newspaper](\"https:\/\/optimumfeedback.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Screenshot-2019-01-28-at-10.33.53-1024x687.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nData Scrapers<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Trade Association and Chamber of Commerce Websites<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Unstructured Citations<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Local Blogs and Area Guides<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
![\"unstructured](\"https:\/\/optimumfeedback.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Screenshot-2019-01-28-at-10.37.30-1024x558.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nSocial Profiles and Question and Answer Sites<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Press Releases<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
To clarify, we\u2019re referring to press releases done through a press release distribution service (ones you pay for) as opposed to a genuine media release about a news-worthy event. The latter will often have significant value from a reputational and a link-value standpoint as links will usually come from media domains with high authority. <\/p>\n\n\n\n5) How many citations are needed<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/li>![\"local](\"https:\/\/optimumfeedback.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Screenshot-2019-01-28-at-10.39.33.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n6) Options for building and managing citations<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Manual citation management<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Some accounts (for example Bing or Apple Maps) may require phone verification too, so if you\u2019re doing this on behalf of a client, be sure to pre-warn them and ask them to write down the verification code. <\/li>Automatic Citation Management <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"We're](\"https:\/\/optimumfeedback.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/soprano.jpg\")
Hybrid Citation Management<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
7) How to build citations<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
General tips for fixing or manually building citations<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Save time with browser extensions<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Use a dedicated email if possible<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\nKeep it consistent and organised<\/h4>\n\n\n\n