What does local citation building mean?

Author: Ryan Walsh

Date: 25/04/2025

 

Table of contents:

• What are local business citations?
• Is citation building still considered necessary?
• How can a business build business citations?
• Why do citations need ongoing management?
• How many business citations will our business need?
• FAQ on business citations and NAP
• Local citation building

Citation building is part of the fundamental building blocks that make up organic and local SEO.

There’s always a conversation that links are dead, and that building citations is an outdated tactic; however, it’s not.

No matter how sophisticated Google is and whether you have used Google Gemini, wow, it’s not refined; it still relies on information.

Such information could be, well, where your business is. For this, Googlebot spends time reading your website, yet it also crawls and indexes other pages, such as Yellow Pages, to read your company’s NAP information.

What are local citations?

Local business citations are online mentions of your business name, address and phone number. These can appear on a social media business page, online business directories, and perhaps within an article.

 

Where can you typically find business citations?

Some business citations are more important than others. For example, your Google Business Profile will be an essential page that Google will use when obtaining your company’s NAP information.

However, there are many other websites, such as Yell, Trust Pilot and Facebook Business pages, which Google will also index.
Talk to any top SEO agency; they will tell you that consistency is key.

This is hard because businesses can change their address, phone numbers, and name. Now, unless the business citations are managed and kept up to date, you can enter a situation where a business has conflicting citations.

All this means that 75% of citations may state your address, whilst the remaining citations say somewhere different. As you can imagine, this can be unclear, not just for a shopper trying to find the company’s address but also for Google.

Therefore, Google likes your business citations to be consistent and up to date. Thus, whether you have one business citation or a million, you should work to keep these up to date.

Citations can broadly be split into two main categories they are:

Structured citations

Structured citations are typically the business citations on websites such as Yell. These citations allow for consistent formatting if the business or the appointed marketing company add the information correctly to the website.

 

Unstructured business citations

For example, a business is mentioned in an article. Therefore, the company name or address might be mentioned as part of a paragraph of text when discussing the business.

What is Local Citation Building?

Why should a business build business citations?

If you list your business on reputable websites, then this can mean that other websites mention your business name, address and phone number. Googlebot will then crawl and index this information, and because it’s cited so many times, it’s likely to be more reliable.
Also, you should use business citations on websites related to your business’s niche. For example, if you run a solicitor’s practice, list your business on websites related to solicitors.

Also, on a separate note, some websites, such as business directories or websites that offer awards, can mention your business’s NAP information. As well as that, you can also obtain a link, it could be a do-follow link or a no-follow link; however, if the link is coming from a good, high-quality website, which is linking to a page on your website, this itself can also have some positive SEO benefit.

 

How can building business citations help my business?

Increases Search Rankings

If completed correctly, you can see a positive uplift in where your business is ranked over time. Business citations are an essential part of local SEO. However, they also form part of organic SEO, as Google and Google’s algorithm will want to know where your business is located.
So, let’s give you a nice example.

If 100 quality business directories and companies that issue awards and qualifications all state the same NAP information, your business’s local SEO will be dramatically impacted.

You can see your business rank higher in the city where you are based.

Why does this happen?

Well, it happens because Googlebot and Google’s algorithms will have much greater confidence that your business is based in that city if you have business citations stating this.

Therefore, it can help increase Google’s confidence that your business is based in that location.
Otherwise, what can happen is that, in some affluent regions, for example, or anywhere in the UK, businesses may try to say they are based there when they are not.

However, having NAP information stating where the business is based and located on many business directories, such as Thomson Local, can help Google understand your business.

 

Local SEO Results

Having multiple business citations set up for your business can help improve the local SEO.
Therefore, getting your business mentioned on quality business directories is essential.

How does your SEO agency build business citations?

Google Business Profile

The first place we start is the company website. Has the NAP information been added to the website?

Is it written so that Googlebot can read that text?

Good, now we are on to the next stage.

The next stage is to set up a Google Business account. This doesn’t take very long. However, it’s essential to add as much detail as possible.

Do as much research as you can about the business.

Also, ensure that the NAP information matches your company website.

 

Submit to Local Business Listings

Then it’s time to submit your business to local business listings. However, we believe this is best left to an SEO company to decipher which business directories are best and which have a high DA or domain authority score.

For example, which business directories are your competitors using? You can check this using a quality backlink checking tool. That’s because often, a business will have its NAP information listed and obtain a do-follow or a no-follow backlink from that website.

 

Review websites

You can use various review platforms like TrustPilot to gain quick and easy business citations. These also allow you a place to direct customers when they may ask you where they can leave a business review. You can always say Google Business, but why not ask them if they want to leave a business review on TrustPilot?

Many of the best SEO minds also think that having a lot of genuine and positive business reviews can help improve your business’s Google EEAT score. To be more exact, it can enhance the trustworthiness aspect of Google EEAT, and therefore, it can further help improve your company’s local and organic SEO.

Optimise Social Media Business Profiles

Set up various social media accounts to update your customers on news relating to your business and create an NAP mention.
For example, Facebook allows businesses to create a Facebook Business Page, which is an absolute piece of cake to set up. However, it provides a good business citation and a place where customers can leave a business review.

You might want to create social media profiles on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram?

 

Why do citations need ongoing management?

What many businesses often don’t appreciate is that when they change address, this can sometimes have a significant effect on the business’s SEO.

For example, a landlord may increase the rent, causing a business to relocate, perhaps at relatively short notice.

This can mean that the business has a million and one things that it needs to sort out when moving address and setting up the office in a new location.

For example, you might be busy moving offices; you might not have the time to change your business citations.

However, what can sometimes happen is that your website lists your new address, therefore your new citation details.

This can get “scraped” by bots and replicated on other websites.

You then may have your old addresses still live on the internet, which causes what are called conflicting business citations.

The NAP information says one thing on your website, and the business citations may say another. This confuses Google’s algorithms, as the

NAP information has become inconsistent. Therefore, the NAP must be changed to reflect your new company address.

Frequently Asked Questions

 

FAQ regarding building NAP business citations:

Which businesses need business citations?

All businesses that want to improve their SEO need business citations. However, it is also important to note that some businesses have business citations and may not even have a company website. This is therefore not improving their local search engine optimisation; it might just be when someone is looking up their company name that they can find the business instantly.

Business citations are therefore suitable for business, as they act as a mention of your company. When built correctly, they can help to improve your local SEO. Yet as we mentioned a little bit earlier, these business citations must be carefully managed.
That’s because if the information becomes outdated, it can cause conflicting business citations. Therefore, any new citations must be built to be consistent.

 

How many business citations are needed?

This depends, but as with everything related to SEO, the process never ends. Because if you build 100 quality business citations, there will always be a company that can make more.

However, talk to the best SEO consultants in the world; they will tell you that quality is far more critical than quantity. Also, take your time. Google’s algorithms want to see quality work implemented over an extended timeframe; they don’t want to see a large amount of SEO all done simultaneously.

 

How long does it take to build business citations?

Building business citations doesn’t take that long at all. However, you have to determine which businesses would be best for you to build a business citation on.

The business citations should be built on websites related to your business sector. The websites should also have a high DA score. This is why many SEO agencies use backlink checking tools such as Moz Pro when they check where their direct competitors may have built business citations and links.

Are business citations worth the same?

No, some business citations are much more important than others.

Let’s give you an example, let’s say there’s an exclusive membership that’s only offered to top solicitors.

Let’s say the standard for being a member is set very high.

Therefore, that membership is exclusive, hard for other businesses to obtain, yet recognised as the gold standard.

Now, if that website has, let’s say, a membership page, and your business gets cited there, with NAP details, this can massively boost your business’s local search engine optimisation. That website will likely have a high DA score and is relevant to your business.

As any good SEO consultant, who’s their salt, will tell, it’s better to have far fewer business citations from quality business directories.

If you are unsure where your business should build business citations, talk to a local SEO company for advice.

 

Why do you recommend writing a bespoke business description for each business citation?

Do try writing a bespoke business description for the business citation you build. The reason is that Google does not like duplicate text.

So, even if it’s just a paragraph of text to describe your business, if it’s duplicated across multiple business citations, this looks low quality, as little effort is exerted.

However, if you write bespoke business descriptions for each business citation, then this can help enhance the listing and enhance your business’s SEO.

 

Is building business citations a one-off task?

No, it’s often an ongoing process. The reason is that your direct competitors here in Cardiff will likely be working on continuously improving their local SEO. This work could mean building new business citations every month.

Therefore, if your business does not keep up with this work, it’s likely that you may fall behind the competition, as their off-page SEO, such as business citations and backlinks, might be deemed stronger.

 

Why is it necessary to cite business citations within our niche?

Whether you’re a hairdresser, lawyer or accountant, try to build business citations on websites related to your business sector. The reason for this is that it adds relevance. If you’re an accountant building business citations on websites about accountancy and finance, then Google will know your business is about accountancy.

 

What if I spot a business citation that’s incorrect?

You can try to claim the business citation; some websites allow you to do this.

If the information is incorrect, then you may wish to call the business or email them. Please state that the information could weaken your business’s SEO because it is wrong. Therefore, you need the citation updated as soon as possible.

 

Can your SEO agency build business citations for us?

We most certainly can. Currently, we work with many clients in Cardiff, South Wales. From dentists to lawyers and construction companies. Our range of clients is vast, yet what unites them is that they all got onto the first page of Google due to our SEO services.