As a small business owner, you have learned that high quality citations will improve your business’ ranking in Local search results. You even have considered hiring a local business listings submission service to ensure that not only does your business have quality citations but lots of them.
Local citation building is part of what is known as Local SEO. It is a marketing strategy geared toward improving a business’ Local search result ranking.
Here are some tips that you as a business owner, can do to further improve your business’ ranking.
The first thing on your list is creating and claiming a local profile on Google Places. First, your local listing on Google is what will be seen in Local search results. Second, Google plays favorites. Google favors businesses that have a local profile over those who do not.
Lots and lots of reviews left for your business, preferably good ones, on your Google Places profile. Once again, Google plays favorites.
If you don’t already have a website- get one. It does not have to be elaborate and expensive to maintain. There are sites that provide drag and drop templates and many of them are free or relatively inexpensive.
Make sure your business’ name, address and phone number are listed on every page of your site, in the same format as your Google Places. The footer is a great location.
Use your city and state in your title tags, meta descriptions and within the content of your website.
This is one of those cases where perfection is everything. Your business’ NAP needs to match identically how it is listed in Goggle Places to get the best possible results from your citation building campaign. While many of these tasks can be performed in-house, building quality citations take time, patience and the experience of knowing what the best online business listing sites are for your business. Research is key and that is why you need to find the best directory submission service- one that will not only research the best listing sites but whose staff has the experience and patience to ensure that each listing matches your business’ Goggle Places listing.