“Citations
will always be important. But its not the only important thing.
Getting the data right should be done for ensuring that anyone who
uses the directories are getting good information and not for a boost
in google maps ranking. If that is why you are doing it, then it is a
waste. Only worry about directories that get traffic or aggregators
who reach the sites that matter to you”. – Mike
Ramsey
Are
Citations more or less important now than 12 months ago?
Key
Findings:
23%
say citations are more important than 12 months ago (vs. 44% in
2013)
18%
say citations are less important than 12 months ago (vs. 6% in 2013)
59%
say the importance is about the same (vs. 50% in 2013)
Analysis:
The
majority of experts (59%) believe that citations have the
same importance as they did 18 months ago. 23% of experts believe
they have become more important – which is nearly 50% fewer than in
2013 – whilst a lot more experts believe the importance has
decreased.
Expert
Quotes:
“
While
lots of local SEOs claim that citations aren’t as powerful anymore,
it really depends on the vertical. In many verticals, business owners
still have tons of citation problems, so just a bit of citation work
can really move the needle”. – Greg
Gifford
“While
I believe the most important citations are still very important along
with niche citations, links have gained much more influence in local
rankings post Pigeon”. – Casey
Meraz
“Citations
are still an important piece of the puzzle but I don’t think they
carry the same weight that they once did. The ranking algo is
becoming increasingly complex and citations are still in that
mix, but they are amongst many more factors than there were a few
years ago”. – Colan
Nielson
What
is more important, quantity or quality of citations?
Key
Findings:
71%
say quality over quantity (vs. 64% in 2013)
10%
say quantity over quality (vs. 18% in 2013)
19%
say they have the same importance (vs. 18% in 2013)
Analysis:
The
majority of experts agree that Quality of citations trumps Quantity.
So rather than claim & build hundreds of citations, local
businesses should focus on optimizing the highest quality sites
first. This belief in Quality has increased since 2013.
However,
focusing on quality alone won’t deliver results. Having 1 high
authority citation isn’t as valuable as having 30 mixed authority
citations (data aggregators excluded).
There
needs to be a sensible balance of quality & quantity to deliver
improved local rankings. Businesses should focus on high authority &
high value (see more on ‘Citation Value’ below) sites first and
then work down through a prioritized list of medium-lower value
sites.
Expert
Quotes:
I’m
a big believer in quantity and quality. But by quantity the real
benefits come from ENORMOUS quantity, something difficult to scale or
plan or accomplish. It can take years, and/or
a fortuitous reference that gets copied endlessly. The benefits are
huge. – Dave
Oremland
“
Quality
over quantity. Nail the top 30-50 sites and move on.
You’ll accomplish that with 2-3 rounds of work on your citations,
each spread out by a couple of months (see
post). Pay close attention to the main industry-specific sites in
your field, and become a member of a couple of trade associations”.
– Phil
Rozek
“Quality
is much more important than quantity when it comes to citations. I
frequently mention that a correct ExpressUpdate listing could be 10
times more beneficial than a correct Yahoo! Local listing, and 100
times more beneficial than a MerchantCircle listing, for instance.
After certain amount, the value of citations drops so significantly
that I advise businesses to spend their budget elsewhere. For the US,
this threshold is at about 70-90 citations (depending on the
industry). For other countries it is even lower – for Canada or the
UK it is about 60-70 citations, for Australia it is 40-50 citations,
and for countries like New Zealand (for instance) it is more in the
range of 20-25 citations”. – Nyagoslav
Zhekov
What
factors are most important when selecting which citation sites
to use?
N.B.
We asked the experts to credit each of the above factors with a
‘low’, ‘medium’, ‘high’ or ‘very high’ rating, and
created a score based on their responses.
Key
Findings:
Industry
Relevance & Local
Relevance are
considered the most important factors
Domain
Authority is
3rd most important factor
Design
of Site & Site
Traffic are
of lesser importance
Analysis:
Industry
Relevance comes out as the most important factor. There are 3 reasons
for this:
Industry-specific
sites give a clear signal to search engines about product/services
that a business provides
They
are more specialised sites so tend to have higher
domain authority vs. local directories
They
tend to rank well in search engines for specific terms
and deliver more targeted leads
Local
Relevance is the 2nd biggest factor because the local signals they
pass to google. They can also be decisive in separating businesses in
competitive markets, where most businesses will have listings on well
known, high authority sites, but fewer will have listings on local &
regional sites. Having additional listings on local sites can
give a business the advantage they need to outrank competitors.
Domain
Authority is still an important factor and should be taken into
consideration, but it’s not the sole factor by which to judge a
citation.
Expert
Quotes:
While
domain authority can be a significant benefit from ‘linktations’
(citations that include a link), many directories no follow links
anyway. Therefore, I don’t really use DA as a deciding factor in
building citations. – Mary
Bowling
Which
of these sources of ‘Unstructured’ citations do you favour
above others?
Note:
Experts were asked to select up to 3 site types
Key
Findings:
Local
Government Sites are rated the highest unstructured citation sites
(20%)
Local
Business Groups / Associations are rated highly (20%)
Industry
Associations also favored (17%)
Analysis:
The
authority that comes from a local Government site obviously makes it
an appealing source of citations. Local Business Groups and
Associations are also important to target for local SEOs.
Job
sites and / or Classifieds can often seem more ‘spammy’ in their
nature, as well as the fact that they only generally offer short-term
citations.
Do
you update existing citations or build new citations first?
Key
Findings:
50%
do a mix of both at the same time (vs. 56% in 2013)
45%
update existing citations first (vs. 38% in 2013)
5%
build new citations first (vs. 5% in 2013)
Analysis:
This
is one aspect of citation management that has not changed over the
last 18 months.
Local
experts are split on whether to update existing citations first, or
tackle both existing & new citations at the same time.
It’s
clearly important to clean up existing data issues as a
priority. These can be very damaging and easily wipe out the
uplift that new citations provide. So auditing your existing
citations to determine data issues is the correct place to
begin. Tackle data clean-up first, gauge the ranking uplift and
then build new citations if uplift is not as you hoped it would be.
Only
a small minority of experts would suggest building new citations
first.
Expert
Quotes:
“With
limited exceptions, there seems to be a “more citations, the
better” mantra among folks who do local citation work. In fact,
there are instances where people are going out of their way to build
new citations, on lesser known/relevant sites, before major/niche
citations have been “fixed” and duplicates removed. Like many
other things “search”, I think a focus on getting major citations
right first, gives more bang for the buck”. – Gyi
Tsakalakis
How
important is it to merge or delete duplicate citations?
Key
Findings:
59%
say that it is ‘very important’ to merge or delete duplicate
citations
36%
say that it is ‘fairly important’
Only
5% say it is not an important task
Analysis:
It’s
clear from the results that tackling dupe citations is not the
most important thing, but 95% of experts agree that merging or
deleting duplicate citations is certainly an important task. Again
the findings reinforce the importance of having a clean data set that
doesn’t confuse google or give potential customers a negative
experience of your business before they even speak to you.
Merging
or deleting duplicate citations is often a lengthy process, and each
site can require a different process, but it’s absolutely a
task worth putting resources into.
Does
address formatting need to be 100% perfect?
Key
Findings:
59%
say that address formatting is important but not critical (vs.
50% in 2013)
18%
say address formatting must be 100% consistent (vs 32% in
2013)
14%
say address formatting is not an issue (vs. 18% in 2013)
Analysis:
The
experts agree that address formatting is an important thing to get
right, but we shouldn’t fret too much about achieving 100%
accuracy.
Even
though 18% of experts say formatting MUST be 100% consistent,
it is extremely challenging to achieve data-perfection and
correcting the final 5-10% is often harder than fixing the first
90%. Just do as much as you can without killing yourself!
Expert
Quotes:
“Address
formatting is critical, but small differences like suite vs ste. do
not matter”. – Darren
Shaw
“Address
formatting is critical, but it can be almost impossible to ensure
100% consistency across all sources”. – David
Kelly
How
important is ‘richness’ of citations?
Note
– the term ‘Richness’ refers to additional data points
such as photos, descriptions, working hours, services etc…
Key
Findings:
18%
say that richness of citations are “Essential”
27%
say that richness of citations are ‘Very Important’
50%
say that richness of citations are ‘Fairly Important’
Analysis:
95%
of experts believe that having additional data on your citations is
important, even critical.
These
pages act as landing pages for your businesses where you can engage
new customers before they even reach your website or contact
you. A sparse listing doesn’t give a customer much to gauge
you on, but a page with photos, a clear description, detailed
services & working hours quickly answers the questions they
have and is more likely to generate a lead.
95%
of experts believe that having additional data on your citations is
important, even critical.
Expert
Quotes:
“The
reason I think it’s essential is not so much about it being used in
Google algorithm but because each citation is a landing page and a
first impression for your business”. – Max
Minzer
“In
2015, the richness of citations will continue to be increasingly
important, and should be an area of focus for local search
strategies. Consumers now expect expanded, rich content on the web,
and I believe that search engines will reward businesses and brands
that take advantage of rich content at the local level. Consistency
of citations is only a starting point now – it’s important to
take advantage of anything else that can give your business an edge”.
– David
Kelly
Do
you think it’s best to build citations quickly or steadily over
time?
Key
Findings:
38%
say that citation building should be an ongoing process that never
ends
19%
say that you should build steadily over 3-6 months
29%
say that you should build quickly over 1-2 months
Analysis:
Whilst
29% of experts believe that you should build citations quickly over a
1-2 month period, there is also a 38% majority who say that this
process should actually never end.
Depending
on your starting point, we usually advise customers to hit the ground
running and tackle 25-50 of the top sites straight away. This is
especially important if there are existing data inconsistencies
because they really hamper local performance.
After
that it depends on the level of competition in your industry &
location. If you benchmark yourself against competitors.
Expert
Quotes:
“PRO
TIP: Look at what businesses are ranking well locally with the least
amount of citations. Then look at their citation sources. Go
after those first because obviously with minimum effort they
are getting results and it’s most likely that Google likes their
citation sources”. – Matthew
Hunt
What
are the Pros & Cons of using Aggregators to build citations?
We
then asked our citation experts to give us their Pros / Cons of using
data aggregators to build citations. The most common responses are
listed below.
Pros:
Easier
& faster than submitting direct to each site
Wide
distribution to a large number of citation sites & mapping
services
Trusted
data sources for sites (more trusted than other sources)
Reach
some services (e.g. Car Navigation systems) that can’t be
updated directly
Cons:
Longer
time for updates to go live on citation sites
Difficult
to identify & delete duplicates
Can’t
claim listings & don’t have 100% control of data
Poor
reporting on successful distribution
Some
aggregators charge high fees for managing listings
Expert
Quotes:
“They
are an important and trusted data source, and their data gets
distributed to many sites in the Local Search Ecosystem… Every
business should listed on all the data aggregators. The only possible
con is that they’ll also distribute incorrect citation data far and
wide, so it’s critical to make sure your data is accurate on these
data aggregators”. – Darren
Shaw
“One
of the cons is that they do take time. You have to be patient and
wait for the data to distribute. Also, no solution is a set it and
forget it in my mind. You need to check up on them over time and see
if any new information was added or has been changed”. – Casey
Meraz
“Having
correct listings on the aggregators is non-negotiable. You’ve got
to do it sooner or later. The only question is how much more work you
should do, and when. If your business is brand new and you iron
out your aggregator listings right away you’ll see some nice
natural, hands-free citation growth over time. But if you’ve got a
lot of messy citations simply fixing your aggregator listings won’t
fix your listings on the smaller, downstream sites. That’s mess
you’ll still have to clean up manually”. – Phil
Rozek
“Old
citations usually don’t get overridden, but rather new listings are
created within the network, which means that the old citations would
stick around as duplicates”. – Nyagoslav
Zhekov
What
are the Pros & Cons of manually building & claiming
citations?
Finally,
we asked our experts to give us the Pros / Cons of going through the
process of manually building and claiming citations. The most common
responses are listed below:
Pros:
Complete
control over data
Claiming
of listings locks them & protects them from updates
Ability
to get the quality citations you really want
Easier/better
reporting on successful distribution
The
human touch can be beneficial
Cons:
Time-consuming
to achieve
More
resource heavy – money / time / effort
Can’t
update certain sites which don’t have open-access channel
Expert
Quotes:
“Nothing
beats doing things by hand. You can usually create a more
enriched listing. The downfall, is it takes a lot more effort”.
– Matthew
Hunt
“Manually
building and claiming citations offers far more control than any
other method growing citations, which can be very important for
consistency. Additionally, manual citation management often allows
businesses to take advantage of specialized and expanded fields in
listings, which are often not accessible through the Aggregators.
Of
course, manual citation building and claiming can be incredibly
time-consuming. The manual approach is great for some of the most
important and high profile sites and search engines, but it’s also
not a strategy that can be efficiently executed at scale, especially
when businesses have multiple locations”. – David
Kelly
“
Manually
building and claiming citations is a real labour of love. It
can be expensive, time consuming, and without the right level of
expertise may not actually yield any benefit. However, done
correctly, using a personal approach to citation building will yield
more influential citations that could have a bigger impact on
rankings. The other advantage, of course, to manually doing the work
is that many of the highest quality citations benefit from the human
touch: a phone call from a real person will usually do the
trick when claiming citations”. – Susan
Hallam
“Obviously
its slow if you do it manually, but unique IP, unique browser, and
randomness makes it very natural, and almost guarantees not to be
filtered”. – David
Sprague
We believe the game has changed for small businesses on Google after the latest changes in August 2015 and Directories could possibly be the answer, along with Facebook and Twitter who seem to have changed a few things to accommodate this, meaning diversity is the key. It almost seems like a website for "small" business is virtually redundant for search traffic.
