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Local Citation Building as an SEO Foundation Part I

Trying to rank a site or web page for organic searches without a proper SEO foundation is a common cause for the failure of some SEO campaigns. Add to this the fact that many internet marketers are oblivious to citation building and local search value and it's easy to see why so many websites fail to gain traction in the SERP. However, local signals - especially citations - play a large role in overall national or even global signals and in fact should be the basic starting point for any search engine optimization efforts.

Ultimately, Google and the other search engines need to know that you actually exist as a local business. If you're trying to gain the search engine's attention with an SEO plan but it's not sure you exist in the real world, you're probably going to have a difficult time getting your keywords ranked. This is why local citation building should precede any other SEO efforts.

Citation building consists of listing your business and address in various places on the internet in order to gain high rankings for local searches for terms related to your products or services. This includes creating listings on sites like the online Yellow Pages, the Better Business Bureau, Yahoo, DMOZ and more. However, if you know anything about Google's search standards, you're probably asking the following question:

"If anyone can get these listings, then how much value can they really offer to Google?"

Based on Google's high quality standards, this is an excellent question considering that in most cases, backlinks that can be obtained easily by anyone are often significantly discounted by search algorithms, so in theory this should apply to citations as well. One of the ways that Google resolves this issue is by comparing two types of data: structured and unstructured citations.

Structured citations are those that come from sites or pages that are dedicated to business listings. Listings are generally arranged by relevant categories and the format of business names, address and other pertinent information follows a set pattern.

Unstructured citations are those that are found in areas not specifically designed to feature listings. For instance, your business name and address listed in a blog post is an example of an unstructured citation. Other examples include mentions in articles, newspapers, video descriptions, referrals from other websites and more.

Google compares the structured and unstructured citations for consistency, completeness and relevance and assigns it a value based on this information. Just as is the case with backlink analysis and other organic search ranking factors, Google considers some types of content and mentions more "natural" than others. In this case structured citations can be obtained by anyone and therefore should not be assigned a large trust value, while unstructured citations are more natural and therefore in theory should lend more credibility.

When your structured and unstructured citation data matches consistently, your chances of ranking well in local search improve dramatically. Once this local "presence" has been established for your business and website, then subsequent SEO efforts will likely be far more effective; especially if your citation efforts outpaced those of your competitors.

The next article in this series discusses how to actually go about building citations. But if you need immediate assistance creating listings, call the number at the top of your screen now to speak to a local citation building expert.

Chris Vendilli
About the Author
Chris is the founder and CEO of Vendilli Digital Group. In his free time, you’ll find him camping, fishing, or playing beer league ice hockey with a bunch of guys who refuse to admit they’re already over the hill.
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