Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Flipboard 0 Citation management is an important part of the local SEO services we offer to small businesses. There are several reasons every small business needs to pay attention to this. 7 benefits of good citation management Broad Exposure How widely are you known across the Internet? You need to make sure you’re listed and easy to find across the web at dozens of local search engines, directories, maps, mobile apps, and voice assistants like Alexa. This also helps Google, Yahoo & Bing to have more trust in who you are, what you do, and where you are. Accuracy and Consistency It can make sure your NAP (name address, phone) is consistent across all of those listings. Before working with us, a recent client was missing from more than a third of the top citation listings. Even worse, two listings had an incorrect address and 14 had their old company name. When this happens, Google has very low confidence in who or where you are. And that’s devastating to your chances of showing up in local searches. Visible Reviews Having reviews on multiple sites builds your reputation. Having review stars show up in multiple places enhances your reputation. When you get a word-of-mouth referral, odds are that person will look you up by name before they call, just to check you out. When they do, your website should show up — but so will many of your citations, at places like Google My Business, Yelp, MerchantCircle, Facebook, and more. Some may show up that you’ve never heard of, like Clutch or TrustPilot. If all of those have review stars displaying in the search results, that increases the likelihood that person will want to do business with you. Review Monitoring We send our clients an email every time someone posts a new review for them. Responding to reviews promptly has been found to increase conversions and closed business. So it’s important to know about new reviews as they happen. Suppressing duplicate listings helps search engines trust which is correct. Duplicate Listing Monitoring Duplicate and near-duplicate listings can confuse search engines, and that’s never a good thing. We alert our clients whenever we find a possible duplicate so they can check it out and suppress it if necessary. Robust Business Information Good citation management doesn’t just start with getting your NAP widely disseminated. All of those citation sources gather and reflect lots of information about your business: Website and email links Description of your business and services Social media links Business hours including special holiday hours Accessibility information Your logo and photos much more Inclusion in verticals Google is getting better and better at responding to what’s called vertical search. Proper citation management will promulgate information that can help you show up when people search for specific things like Wheelchair accessible dentist near me Local restaurant with lasagna Woman-led wellness coach Veteran-led SEO company etc. Structured data markup focuses Google on your essential information. Agree? Disagree? Have questions? Let us know in the Comments section below. Twitter Tweet Facebook Share Email This article originally appeared on Rank Magic Blog and has been republished with permission.Find out how to syndicate your content with B2C Author: Bill TreloarBill Treloar is the owner and principal SEO consultant at Rank Magic. Bill holds a bachelors degree in psychology, an MBA in management, and has wide experience managing both technical (information technology) and non-technical (insurance and marketing) organizations. Bill has been president of the New York Enterprise Developer Users Group,… View full profile ›More by this author:Should You Pay for Citation Management?Are Your Business Listings Sabotaging You?50 Things Every Small Business Website Should Have