The Growth Wire

Google’s Local Search, Part 2: Citations

Posted on November 15, 2009 by Bill Hansen

Our first post about Google’s local search tools focused on the basic what, why, and how to help you get started.  This second installment focuses in on the critical steps for improving your local search ranking.

You may have heard or read that having ‘incoming links’ to your website is critical for appearing high in a Google search result.  This is true.  A very large component of Google’s overall ranking scheme is based on how popular your page is, as measured by the number (and relative popularity) of sites linking to yours.  But what if you don’t have many, or any, links coming to you from outside sources?  What if you don’t even have a website?  Don’t sweat.  There’s another way to be found.

If you’re a local business that caters to customers that live or work nearby, you need to focus on the recent advancements and tools that are built to help customers find local results.  Not surprisingly, this is called ‘Local Search.’  Google’s tool for local search is the Local Business Center – A map that now shows up on most search results for terms that typically have local relevance (like dry cleaners).  For more on the maps, see Part 1.

As Google turned their attention to local search (finally) several years ago, they realized that many local businesses don’t have websites, and most certainly don’t have a lot of incoming links.  They found that it was much more common to find simple, unlinked text listings as the primary references for the many small businesses that drive local economies.  These references – the digital equivalent of Yellow Page listings or printed member lists are called ‘citations.’ They appear in online directories, review sites, social networks, and a host of other web services (think chambers of commerce member lists, travel guides, news articles, etc).

Google uses these citations to determine the popularity (or relevance) of the business for its search results.  It almost certainly uses other things to rank local business results, but most experts believe that citations (and their relative importance) drive the lion’s share of local search results.

So what should you do?   Follow the 5 steps, and use the list of links provided below, to get your business listed on as many citation sources as possible!

1. Find key citation sources:  Type in your category and look at the listing/reviews of the top-ranked businesses.  These sources will be the dominant sources for your rank.  Start with the free services that simply require a registration.  Use them all!  Move on to the paid sites if you still need to increase your rank.  Make sure you’ve registered with the sites listed at the bottom of this post.  Plenty of additional explanation/detail here.  This site also weighs in with some good observations.
2. Make sure that your business is registered in the Google Local Business Center (see Part 1 or go here).
3. ALWAYS make sure that your name and address and any officer names are spelled EXACTLY the same way (critical so Google can match and add up your businesses citings.
4. Don’t forget the reviews and voting on these sites.  Google, MSFT, an Yahoo are all paying relatively more attention to these ‘social’ citations today.  Add your own review to your citings.  Invite friends to add reviews as well.
5. Get creative.  Join your chamber’s listings if it’s affordable.  Does your local university have a business directory for its community? Take advantage of donation opportunities that are tied to web citations.  Add a reference to your business on Wikipedia.

How important is this subject?  Well, just a few months ago Google used to present about 10 local results for each search.  This made it fairly easy for most businesses in smaller markets to be found.  Then they reduced it to 7 results.  As of last week, only 5 results are showing up on most searches.  In other words, just as most local marketers are figuring out how to use this tool, Google is making it twice as hard to get a top ranking!  If local search is anything like Googles universal search, these top 5 links are going to get 95% of the clicks on local search results.  Get moving today!

See below for Top Free Citation Sites:Most of these sites take anywhere from 10 days to a month to generate citations in Google, so start today!

InfoUSA (Free) – Get Listed

Yahoo Local (Free Basic, Paid Enhanced) – Get Listed

Windows Live Local (free) – Get Listed

TrueLocal (Free Basic, Paid Enhanced) – Get Listed

Local.com (Free Basic, Paid Enhanced) – Get an Account

SuperPages (Free Basic, Paid Enhanced) – Get Listed

YellowPages.com (Free Basic, Paid Enhanced) – Get Listed

MagicYellow (Free Basic, Paid Enhanced) – Get Listed

YP.com (Free Basic, Paid Enhanced) - Get Listed

MacRAE’s Blue Book (Free Basic, Paid Enhanced) - Get Listed

Localeze (Free Basic, Paid Enhanced) – Get Listed

Wcities (Free Basic, Paid Enhanced) – Get Listed

iBegin (Free) – Get Listed

Yelp (Free Basic, Paid Enhanced) – Get Listed

Judy’s Book (Free) – Get Listed

MojoPages (Free) - Get Listed

Tupalo (Free) – Get Listed

Insider Pages (Free Basic, Paid Enhanced) – Get Listed

YellowBot (Free) – Get Listed

Citysquares.com (Free Basic, Paid Enhanced) - Get Listed

Yokld (Free) - Get Listed

Metrobot (Free) Get Listed

Tyloon (Paid Programs) Get Listed

ZoomInfo (Paid Programs) Get Listed

Paid Registration Required:

Yellowbook.com (Paid Programs) – Get Listed

Citysearch (Paid Programs) – Get Listed

Experian (Paid Programs) - Get Listed

Dex (Paid Programs) – Get Listed

UniversalBusinessListing.org (Paid Programs) – Get Listed

Sites that are populated by Affiliates listed above:

AOL Local Submit through InfoUSA affiliate.

MapQuest (InfoUSA Affiliate) -Submit through InfoUSA affiliate.

BigBook (Submit through SuperPages).

Yahoo Yellow Pages Submit through InfoUSA affiliate.

Switchboard.com Submit through SuperPages.

411.com Submit through SuperPages.

InfoSpace YP Submit through SuperPages.

Dogpile YP Submit through SuperPages affiliate.

WebCrawler Submit through SuperPages affiliate.

MetaCrawler Submit through SuperPages affiliate.

WebFetch (Submit through SuperPages affiliate.

AnyWho (YellowPages.com Affiliate)

Thanks to ecommerceoptimization for these links.  Go here for complete descriptions.

http://www.ecommerceoptimization.com/local-business-listing-guide/