Citation Audit & Cleanup

We offer a few different citation building services. We can help with existing and established businesses as well as new startups with their local presence. Citations are essential to your local SEO efforts. This is one of services that can be purchased separately but is also included in SEO.

Why Are Citations

important for local presence?

Business listings or citations first and foremost allow a business to put themselves in front of potential clients. Examples of business listings / citations are: Google, Bing, Yelp, Yellowpages, Angieslist, Nextdoor, Homeadvisor, Manta, and many others. Prospects visits these websites looking for businesses that sell products and services. Some of these listings offer their own advertising on their website. For some, it may be a great option to get in front of more prospects.

Business citations are an essential foundation to starting your business’s online presence. Not only does Google love to see you on many directories for SEO purposes but it just makes sense from a marketing standpoint. Depending on the country you live in and industry your business is in, we have lists of over 300 citation sites to submit your business to.

How We Handle

citation listings service

Research & Audit

If you are a new business, we will perform an audit and see where your competition is listed. For existing businesses we do the same, but check to see where you are already listed. This gives us a quick look into the accuracy of your information that is out there now, and helps us put a plan of action together. It is vitally important that your business’s information is as consistent as possible. 

Corrections & Submissions

First we set up an email address to use to create an account on all of the citation sites. Next, we go citation by citation to see if your business listing exists. If it does, we claim the listing if we are able to or submit an information correction request to the site owner’s support staff. If we find any duplicates, we request they be removed in the same manner. We fill out your profile as full as possible, including images and videos when necessary if you have them.

Reporting & Follow-up

We provide you the login details to the email address we’ve created for the citations and upon completion, we provide a report in Excel of the work we performed. In some citation cleanup situations, we have to follow up multiple times with the site owners over a 30-45 day period to get your information corrected or duplicates removed. This is included in some of our citation services.

Some Very Important Notes

about citation cleanup and building

  1. Transparency is important to us – We like to be as transparent as possible, even when it doesn’t benefit us financially. We prefer to list your business on sites that only allow us to go in and edit the information in future if needed. For example, if your business moves and we need to change the address. Unfortunately, there are some sites that are flat out not supported anymore that your business may be listed on and correcting wrong information or adding more details is simply not possible. Many of these sites allow a one-time listing but that listing cannot be edited. This is happening more and more and we do regularly keep track of what sites do not allow edits. However, if you are in a situation where you have no intentions of moving your business, we can still list your business on that with the understanding it cannot be edited. Having more citations than your competition can give you a big edge up on your competition. However, with any type of marketing it does have risks like previously mentioned.
  2. Accuracy is crucial – We work with companies of all sizes. From small companies operating out of their home to large franchises with many locations across the U.S. The accuracy of your business information out on the web is very important. Not only for SEO but when prospects are looking for your products or services on these citation sites, it is important that they can find you easily, and your contact information is correct.
  3. We can help multiple location companies – If your business is operating in multiple locations, we may need to add pages to your website to accommodate those locations for business citation purposes. This is a great strategy to use for SEO instead of building separate websites for each location. It allows your website to become an authority powerhouse.
  4. All manually done – no software – In the early stages of our company, we tried many of the citation building software out there and each time we found them less than desirable. All of our citation cleanup and citation building services are done manually with no software. The only software we do use for it is the citation tracking the get an overview of where your competition is listed and where are at if you are an existing business. However, we still manually check our list of citations sites for your business under and old address, old phone number, old website, or even an old business name that may be using the same phone number today. The software for us is simply a tool but we do not completely rely on it.
  5. We may need your help – Before we begin any citation process, we create an intake form with all of your information in it. This will include name, address, phone, website, description, payment methods, social media accounts, when the business was started/founded, and some other details needed. After we do the initial citation services, some of the website require additional follow up to approve the changes or to approve your new business listing. This can range from a postcard being sent to your business address with a code or require a phone call to or from the business line and entering a confirmation code on your phone or on the citation website itself. We do note and highlight citations that require follow up in the report you receive from us. It is important to do those follow ups as quickly as possible because some of them are time sensitive.
  6. Our integrity is everything to us – We will only recommend what is in the best interest of your company now and for the future of your company before we perform any of our citation building services. One of the main reasons we do not have a lot of pricing on our website for our services is because each business’s needs are unique and so are the services we provide. We do not have a one size fits all plan in anything that we do. We highly recommend scheduling a free call with us to discuss your needs, your goals, and future plans so we can get to know your business more.