Tricks and Tips for Local Search: Part 2
In Part 1 of Tricks and Tips, we talked about the importance of keeping up-to-date listings on the various Maps platforms (driven for the most part by either Google My Business or Bing Places for Business). In this edition, we’re going to cover some of the basics of mastering your NAP (Name, Address and Phone number)
Local Citations
A Citation is just about any type of directory listing with your business’ name, address and phone number (and fax machine number, email address etc.) and you’ll want them to be the same (and current) anywhere your customers might find them. You’re mainly worried about the ones that rank highest in search results for your business. Things like your Yellowpages, Yelp or Travelocity listings.
In some cases claiming and unifying the information on these listings can be difficult; maybe the directory only gets its data from another paid directory, or the process of claiming the listing is unnecessarily obscured. Be prepared to wait for things in the mail to confirm your addresses, and have an email address handy that’s specific to your business that you can keep an eye on for notifications.
Be wary of services that offer to correct your Citations for you. There can be a bit of an unholy alliance between some directory services and their data partners, and you don’t want to pay for more than you need or listings on directories that don’t have the greatest reputation or grasp of ethics.
Once you’ve corrected those listings, you’ll want to make sure they get picked up by Google (and Duck Duck Go, Bing, etc.). Collect the links together into some content you can put on a page on your website. This can be as simple as something like this:
My Business Name
111 Street Address,
City, State, Postal CodePhone: 111.111.1111
Fax: 111.111.1111You can find more information about My Business at the following site:
You will want to link to this page somewhere on your site and then submit that page for indexing. In Google Search Console this is currently under “Fetch as Google”:
Stay Tuned for Part 3
In Part 3 of Tricks and Tips for Local Search we’ll continue to look at some simple ways you can tweak your site’s content to improve your rankings in Local Search. Stay tuned!
