What Are Local Citations and Why They Are Important to Your Business
Rank Higher in Local Search Queries
What Are Local Citations and Why They Are Important to Your Business
Rank Higher in Local Search Queries
Correct inaccuracies with your business listings, eliminate duplicate business citations and improve your listing management across directories with Thrive Local fully managed local business citation service!
We help you set up, manage and optimize your business citations while adding 5-star reviews at the same time.
But first, what are local citations, and why do you need to include business listings in your online reputation management (ORM) and local search engine optimization (SEO) priorities?
Local listings are a significant component in building a reputable brand image and providing a seamless digital experience to online users. A business listing is one of the many factors contributing to your brand’s local visibility.
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What is a local citation? If you don’t know the answer, you inadvertently put your business’ success at risk.
Marketing Signals surveyed 1,253 owners of failed startups and found that approximately 90% of online businesses fall flat within 120 days of operation because of poor digital marketing performance. Of those companies, 35% indicated low search engine visibility as the major factor that hindered their growth.
Having a clear understanding of what is a local citation is critical to achieving high visibility on Google and thriving in this competitive online landscape.
Your brand needs to have a strategic, well-managed local listing management system in place. What are local citations, if not an effective way to break free from factors that limit your digital success?
What Is a Local Citation?
Increase Your Visibility and Attract More Prospects
Local business citations or online business listings are any mentions of your brand information, such as your company name, address and phone number (NAP) on the web. Similar to your website, a business listing serves as your virtual profile, which helps search engines find and validate your company’s NAP information and provide accurate data to online users. The more precise and relevant your local citations, the higher your online visibility.
To establish a clear online identity across the web, your business citation should have the following information:
- Company name
- Products or service listings
- Business location
- Payment options
- Contact number
- Website link
- Business hours
- Online reviews and star ratings
- Photos
- Business categories
Erroneous and incomplete business listing information could damage your local presence and give potential customers an unflattering view of your business. Furthermore, an unclaimed or unverified local citation could ruin the online reputation you’re trying to build.
Check your local listings, ensure NAP consistency and develop a strong digital representation with Thrive Local’s business listing services. We use advanced listing management software to perform NAP audits, determine gaps and inconsistencies in your local business citations and facilitate manual local business listing optimization for you on the backend.
Enlist our local business citation service now and gain maximum control of your NAP information across local business listings.
Why Your Business Needs Management for Local Listings
Establish Your Online Identity and Build Consumer Confidence
To retain your market share online and succeed in dominant marketplaces, you need to establish a distinct brand identity across the web, starting with your online business listings.
Local citations act as unique identifiers of your brand, which impact your company’s discoverability and search rankings. Through local citation building and management, you can:
Improve Online Rankings
Statistics show search engine queries with keywords such as “near me” and “today” have increased by about 900% compared to previous years. Through strategic local listing optimization, you can target high-value, geo-specific keywords in your service locations and strengthen your local SEO efforts. Local SEO citation helps search engines verify your NAP information and keep tabs on your brand authority. An accurate local citation improves your chances of claiming the coveted position zero in relevant search results.
Gain Higher Brand Visibility
Local business listing optimization is one of the most efficient ways to boost your brand recognition online. The more websites and directories containing your SEO NAP information, the higher the probability of prospects finding you. Studies show that 46% of all Google searches have local intent. Ensuring your business shows up prominently in search results helps you gain control over your digital presence and attract more online attention. Get in front of your prospects and customers through local listing optimization!
Enhance Customer Experience
Customers have grown increasingly reliant on the internet to find businesses and service providers near them. A BrightLocal study revealed that approximately 90% of consumers use the internet to find local brands and about 82% read online reviews to guide their decision-making process. By prioritizing Google local business listing optimization, you establish NAP consistency across local citations, leverage opportunities to showcase positive online reviews and point new customers in the right direction.
Capitalize on Marketing Opportunities
Google local listing optimization is a simple yet powerful digital marketing strategy. If you have a local business citation on directories that your customers use to find local service providers, you get an instant visibility boost and a chance to foster brand interactions with your target audience. Most business directories also allow users to post online reviews. With a carefully managed local listing, you can leverage third-party customer reviews to address recurring customer concerns, build brand credibility and deliver excellent customer service.
Increase Website Traffic
Online listing management increases your odds of ranking in Google’s Local 3-Pack – the top three businesses in results for local searches. The more prominent your SEO citation, the higher your chances of driving qualified traffic to your website. Some directories enable adding promotional links and calls-to-action (CTAs) right on your local business listing to direct traffic back to your landing pages. Search engines are also constantly looking for users’ trusted businesses. By providing complete and precise NAP listings, you prove your brand’s existence and legitimacy and earn valuable referral traffic.
Secure Relevant Local Listings
NAP consistency is crucial in getting cited by different sources on the web. If there’s an error on your SEO NAP information, your brand appears less trustworthy. Furthermore, failure to maximize local listing on niche directories reduces your chances of building high-authority backlink profiles. Local business listings service providers use state-of-the-art citation management tools to run regular NAP audits, determine your local listing scores and discover pertinent directories you need to get listed on to improve your local listing scores.
How Our Local Listings Management Services Help Your Business
Get Listed on Authoritative Review Sites and Directories
Whether you own or manage a local brick-and-mortar store, small local shop or a multi-location company, you must claim your online business listing across relevant citation SEO directories and review platforms to build your brand profile and increase your business’s reach.
Given thousands of NAP SEO sites to choose from, how can you ensure you’re investing your time and resources in the right SEO NAP directory?
At Thrive Local, we use an SEO citation checker to assess your current citation management health and scan all pertinent business citations on your niche. We also don’t focus on unnecessary NAP SEO sites with no traffic or low domain authority. Our listing management team hones in on the top 3-5 biggest local business listings, including:
Google Business Listings
Google Business Profile (formerly known as Google My Business or GMB) is a free business citation platform that allows industry leaders to manage their presence on Google Search and Google Maps.
Claiming your Google Business Profile listing is one of the most cost-effective ways to establish your thought-leadership brand, get on Google’s Local 3-Pack and earn consumer trust.
Our Google business listing experts verify your Google Business Profile listing for accuracy, update your company profile and monitor your customer reviews to support your reputation management and lead generation efforts. You have the option to entrust both review management and Google local business listing optimization to our Google business listing team or get packages based on your needs.
Facebook Business Listings
Facebook is the biggest social media platform to date and an increasingly vital resource for companies to make a great impression and drive more business. At Thrive Local, we prioritize Facebook listing management to bolster your brand’s discoverability.
Our Facebook business management professionals assist you in claiming your Facebook business listing page and take over your Facebook business listings optimization to generate more positive reviews from your best customers.
We also run a regular Facebook business listing audit and continually update your local citation with new information, such as events and promotions, to create more awareness of your products and services and build your fan base.
Yelp Business Listings
Yelp ranks as the top public record and directory globally, reaching more than 29.6 million unique mobile visitors in the third quarter of 2020. Begin your Yelp business listing management and optimization today and take advantage of Yelp business listing platform’s growing popularity across demographics and devices.
Our Yelp business listings experts check your Yelp business listing profile and ensure it has your complete NAP SEO information. We also list your business in the correct categories, upload compelling images of your company and take care of the review management on your Yelp business listing to streamline your processes.
Depending on your chosen package, we can handle your local listing optimization, review generation, review monitoring and review response.
Better Business Bureau (BBB) Listings
Maximize your brand’s digital presence through BBB online listing management. Our local citations service includes weekly NAP audits, local business listing optimization and review management.
We secure your NAP listings and ensure they are consistent, showcase your 5-star reviews and ratings and facilitate the resolution of customer complaints through data-driven review responses to promote online trust.
These integrated review management and BBB local business listing services are designed to ensure more people can find your business profile. We also leverage cutting-edge citation management software to uncover your citation gaps and provide you with custom local citations visual reports upon request.
Thrive Local’s Business Listing Management Features
Combine All Your Digital Marketing Initiatives Into One
Local search citations are often scattered on the internet with discrepancies in the SEO citation data. This leads to consumer confusion and negatively impacts your search rankings and lead generation efforts. Issues such as incomplete business listings information, inaccurate citation SEO data, duplicate SEO citation and unclaimed local business citations are often the results of poor management of listings.
Don’t let subpar web listing solutions impede your online success. Capitalize on custom local citation service and get expertly managed online business listings across the web. Our local business citation service involves:
Business Citation Setup
Our local citation management team uses a local citation finder to determine the best citation SEO opportunities for your business. Using the online business listing report, we filter the top online business listing directories and consult our local citation management recommendations with your staff.
Once approved, our business listing service team quickly gets into the local citation building. We take over admin access of your existing online business listing accounts. If you don’t have a Google Business Profile listing, we create your Google Business Profile account and build your local SEO citation on the top 3-5 biggest local business listing platforms.
Business Listing Management
Swamped with daily operations and marketing campaigns? We offer fully managed local listing services to reduce your stress and workload. From review management to Google local listing optimization, we’ve got you covered!
Our listing management experts take a proactive approach to managing all your local search citations. We log in to Google local business listings platforms and other review sites on your behalf and manage them. During our partnership, we ensure all your NAP listings information and photos are accurate and optimized. Our listing management team also works on your online reviews to protect your brand image and leverage marketing opportunities.
Google Local Business Listing Optimization
Incorrect local search citations typically happen when you change your address or contact number without updating your Google local business listings. Let us optimize your Google business listings and increase your brand’s local search visibility!
Our Google local business listing specialists enter your complete local business listing data, create keyword-optimized business descriptions, manage and respond to your online reviews and leverage impressive Google business listings features, such as Product Editor, Product Catalog and Google Posts, to optimize your Google local business listings profile and improve your online engagement.
Review Directory Listing Placements
We use citation management tools to scan your online business listings, identify your local listing scores and check for variations in your local listings placements. After thorough local SEO citation audits, we proceed to local citation building and review management.
We pair local business listing management with review management to drive more leads and traffic to your website and get the most value from your local SEO citations. Our business listings experts monitor your reviews across local business citation platforms and launch review generation campaigns. More importantly, we adhere to each platform’s guidelines to bring you even closer to your target audience.
Thrive Local’s Online Reputation Management Services
Thrive Local’s Online Reputation Management Services
Simplify Your Customers’ Search Experience
Having correct local SEO citations is key to amplifying your brand’s online reach. Your local business citation, however, wouldn’t be complete without high-quality, trustworthy user-generated content (UGC) or verified online reviews.
Several local SEO citations platforms feature consumer reviews to facilitate a better user experience (UX) and guide consumers in their decision-making process. Unfortunately, not all business owners have the capacity and resources to launch integrated review management and web listing solutions.
As a result, more and more companies are losing business to competitors with better, more up-to-date online reviews.
Partner with Thrive Local and let us take care of your listings and reputation management needs. Besides local business listing management, we also offer:
We’ve developed reputation management software that makes it easier to monitor your reviews across local listings. Once you sign up for our online listing service, you get access to our reputation management software, which boasts custom design features, such as a centralized dashboard and CRM and POS systems integrations. Take advantage of our reputation management software and get listed on top review sites!
Review monitoring is an integral part of local listing management. Stay on top of your customer reviews and gain actionable insights with our integrated review management and local business listing service. Our local listing management specialists leverage listing management tool to track your top review sources. We also use our own reputation management tool to facilitate automatic review monitoring across online platforms.
Not seeing results with your current business listing solutions? Your online business listings may be lacking review generation service. At Thrive, we assess your existing Google local listing optimization practices to determine review acquisition flaws and opportunities. Our local citation service team launches unlimited email and SMS drip campaigns with no surcharge to support your NAP marketing and citation management efforts.
A BrightLocal study revealed that nearly 30% of consumers consider review responses important in choosing a local business. Show prospects you’re a transparent and customer-centric company by responding to negative and positive online reviews on NAP marketing channels. We provide automatic email alerts to your team for every new online review so you can quickly respond to them or let our local citation management team take immediate action to ensure you don’t fall behind.
In this competitive digital realm, simply relying on local listings is not enough to propel your brand forward. Gain more votes of confidence and supercharge your review generation campaigns using our custom review widget. This free review widget aggregates online reviews and star ratings from major review sites and online listing management platforms and displays them on your website to improve your brand’s search relevance and convert more page visitors into paying customers.
Your online reputation determines the success of your NAP marketing and local business listing management initiatives. But what happens when you have a damaged reputation? Don’t let negative reviews derail your online growth. Invest in our comprehensive local business listings service and let us fix your online reputation! Our local citation services team reevaluates your business listing solutions and brand management tactics to determine areas of improvement and formulate smart reputation repair strategies.
Managing multiple client accounts simultaneously? Free your internal team from the stress and pressure of handling numerous local citation services for several clients. Sign up for our white label reputation management and local business listing services and let us do the hard work for you! We capitalize on local citation software to generate data-driven citation reports and let our team of experts handle all the listings corrections and updates on the backend. This way, you can accommodate more clients looking for custom local citations service.
Measure your customer perceptions and understand their sentiments about your products and brand support. Besides web listing solutions, we also offer survey campaign management services designed to help you gauge consumers’ level of trust and commitment to your business. We manage various customer loyalty surveys, including SMS surveys, net promoter score (NPS) surveys and visual rating surveys. Get in touch to know more about our survey campaign management and local listing services.
Online Product Reviews Management
Need help in increasing your product exposure on digital marketplaces and local listings? We provide online product reviews monitoring for multiple eCommerce sites, including Amazon, Target Plus, Best Buy, Walmart and Overstock. We also facilitate direct review generation on your website to help you acquire more first-party customer reviews. Looking for business listing services to complement your product review management projects? Schedule a consultation with us and let’s discuss your local listing management needs.
Why Choose Thrive Local for Your Online Business Listings
Outsource Your Tasks to Experts to Save Time and Resources
Do you find your current citation management software faulty? Having trouble analyzing SEO citation checker results? Or maybe you’re just a business owner with their hands full and no time to build out a complete strategy. If that’s the case, let Thrive Local take over. Enlist our local business listing services and let us complete your NAP marketing campaigns with manual local citation building and citation management for optimal coverage!
Thrive Local is a fast-emerging reputation management company that continuously develops reputation management solutions to help more businesses claim their spot in the digital landscape. And now, we have expanded our service offerings to business listing service.
Unlike other companies, we don’t rely on citation management software to automate our local citations service. Yes, we use citation management tools to generate reports and identify citation gaps, but we take a hands-on approach to local business listing optimization.
Here’s what you can expect from our business listing solutions:
Custom Packages
We offer our current and new clients the opportunity to pair review monitoring with local business listings management service. Depending on your marketing needs, you may opt to 1) choose review management alone, 2) integrate reputation management with online listing service or 3) sign up for only the business listing service. All services are fully managed to save you time and effort!
Local SEO Experts
Thrive Local brings you first-rate local citation services that push online progress. Our local SEO experts and reputation managers work closely together to examine and choose a reliable local citation finder and create results-driven listings strategies. Have questions about your current local citation software and tactics? Reach out to us and let us address your local listing concerns.
Multi-Location Listings Monitoring
Our business listing services support any size business. No matter if you own or manage a small business, enterprise or multiple-location company, we can help you. We use innovative listing management software to assess the current condition of your local citations. Once we’ve gathered enough data using an SEO citation checker, we then manually manage your business listings and online reviews across your service locations.
Weekly NAP Audits
Your NAP consistency is essential to us – we want to make sure all information updates on your website reflect on your Google business listing and other local citations. As such, we perform weekly NAP audits and run local citation assessments anytime upon client request. Our local business listing service managers also use a local citation finder to continuously look for business listings opportunities in your market.
Monthly Strategy Calls
Do you have questions or concerns about our local business listing service or the local citation software we use to generate your visual reports? We schedule monthly strategy calls with your team to discuss updates on your online business listings and provide strategic recommendations. Our reputation managers consult every action item with your in-house representatives to ensure we are on the same page.
No Contracts or Cancellation Periods
Don’t get locked into expensive contracts that do not deliver value to your brand. Partner with Thrive Local and get local business listing services with no long-term obligations. We prove our value and the quality of our local citation service from the start to help you decide whether we are the right fit for your company. You also have the option to pause your online listing service and continue once you’re financially ready.
