You own a business in Edmonton – but how does Google know that? How do search engines understand where you do business and how to get in touch with you? How do they know whether or not you’re still in business, and whether or not your core business information is accurate?
The answer is citations. They’re essential to local SEO efforts – the more accurate citations you have, the easier it is for search engines and their users to get the most vital information about your business.
This brief guide will take you from knowing nothing at all about citations to knowing everything you need to do to build and fix citations. Let’s get started.
What Are Citations?
Those of you who are having flashbacks from your school days – don’t worry, these aren’t APA citations. We’re not going to tell you to start writing in Chicago-style or anything like that.
What we’re talking about are name, address, and phone number citations – commonly known as NAP citations, or simply citations.
These citations tell search engines – and your potential clients – all of the most vital information for contacting your business. You can find them all over the internet – and the more of them you have, the more legitimate your business seems to search engines.
That is, if your citations are accurate. But we’ll get to that later. First, let’s look at building citations, starting with how citations look.
Building Citations
Structured and Unstructured Citations
There are two distinct types of citations: unstructured citations, and structured citations.
Let’s say you own a bike shop in Oliver. The Edmonton Journal might run a profile of your bike shop on their website, and that profile might contain some information about your business, like: “Located at 11131 Jasper Ave, the SEO Cycle Shop sells bicycles and bicycle accessories. They can be reached at (780)555-5555….”
That’s an unstructured citation. It’s got a lot of relevant NAP information, but it’s written in an informal style. Conversely, a structured citation might looks like this:
The SEO Cycle Shop
11131 Jasper Avenue
Edmonton, AB, T5K0L0
(780)555-5555
Unstructured citations are, more or less, out of your hands – they can show up in blogs, articles, or even random comments you’ll find online. Structured citations, on the other hand, usually show up in business directories.
You have a lot of control over what shows up in business directories – and we’ll use that to our advantage to create more structured citations online. Remember, these citations help customers find you, and they can send positive signals to search engines about the legitimacy of your business.
Manual Citation Building
The first way to build citations is boring and time-consuming – what more could a business owner ask for? We generally recommend going the automated route, or letting your SEO agency do the grunt work for you.
That being said, if you’ve got a bunch of time on your hands, and you want to really get in the weeds, you can build citations manually. Here’s how:
First, go to these top Canadian citation sites provided by Whitespark. Set up a business profile in each of these directories, ensuring that your NAP citation is consistent on each site – copy/paste is your friend, here.
Then, once you’re done, try to find other citation opportunities. The Edmonton Chamber of Commerce is a good example of a local directory you can use.
Automated Citation Building
Manual citation building is a time-consuming option – and, as we all know, time is money. That’s why you should leave the citation building to your SEO agency.
Don’t have an SEO agency working for you? Try an automated citation builder like BrightLocal’s local citation builder. It costs money, but it takes far less time – and as an added bonus, they’ll find citation opportunities that you might miss on your own.
Fixing Inaccurate Citations
Businesses in Edmonton are somewhat fortunate in that there aren’t a lot of large suburbs connected to the city – aside from Sherwood Park (and Strathcona County in general). That means there will rarely be confusion about the city’s name in your address.
Nonetheless, there can be all kinds of errors in citations across the web. Typos from directories that got your address wrong. Changes to your phone number that haven’t been tracked. An old address that you never got around to changing.
All of these errors add up, and they can reduce the confidence that search engines have in your business. And, of course, they can lead to potential clients getting the wrong phone number, hearing a “this number is not in service message”, and assuming you’ve gone out of business.
Your name needs to be accurate, too. The SEO Cycle Shop is different from SEO Cycle Shop – it’s the little things that can do you in with citations.
Don’t worry, though – inaccurate and incomplete citations are easy to fix. With a little Googling, we can find incorrect citations around the web. Just follow these simple steps:
Finding Inaccurate Citations Manually
To find incomplete citations, Google the following terms:
“Name” “Address” -“Phone number” (For citations without your phone number)
“Name” “Phone number” -“Address” (For citations without your address)
“Address” “Phone number” -“Name” (For citations without your business name)
To find inaccurate citations, Google the following terms:
“Address” “Phone number” “Former/incorrect name” (For citations with an old/incomplete business name)
“Phone number” “Name” “Former/incorrect address” (For citations with an old/incomplete address)
“Address” “Name” “Former/incorrect phone number” (For citations with an old phone number)
Finding Inaccurate Citations Automatically
The manual route is pretty time consuming, so leave it to your SEO agency!
Still don’t have one? That’s okay – there are paid services available. BrightLocal’s citation tracker can help you find incomplete and inaccurate citations – and help you find new citation opportunities.
We do think the best route is to partner with an SEO agency – we’re a little biased, to be sure, but we do so much more than just build citations. This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to SEO. Our Edmonton SEO services are comprehensive – citations are just the start!
Jacob Kettner is the owner and CEO of First Rank Inc., a digital marketing agency based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He currently sits on Manitoba Chamber of Commerce Small Business Advisor Council which assists people grow their small businesses in Manitoba.
