20 Local Citation Sources For Your Small Business

Having a presence online for your small business is very important.

Besides having your own website, it's important to add your business information on other websites so more people can find you online.  All of these external listings you create will all point back to your website and help more people find you.  This is what's called creating local citations for your business.

What is a local citation?

A local citation for your business is a “mention” of your business on another website.  A perfect example of this is your business listing on the Yellow Pages website.  The search engines use this citation, or “mention” of you business to further validate that you are an existing and legitimate business and will increase your chances of getting found online.

Below are 20 websites that are great places to add your business information and help you build a strong presence for you business online.

 

Google Places

Since Google is still the dominate search engine in most of the world, Google Places is an important starting point to building a strong online presence for your business.  There are several ways you can customize your Places listing and you should spend some time on it as it will help in your search results rankings.  If your not familiar with Places, you can read an article that I wrote on Google Places for Small Business.

Yahoo

Yahoo has had a local listing directory for many years and is a great place to add your business info

Bing

Like Google Places, your Bing local listing provides you with alot of ways to customize you listing page.  It also integrates with Bing maps, so this is a must have listing.

Yelp

One of the biggest independent sources for customer reviews in the world.  Your customers are very likely to being using this service already so it's a good idea to claim/update your listing and have a chance to respond to both good and bad customer reviews.

Super Pages

A very powerful place to add your business listing.  Search engines regard this as a high authority website for local business listings.

City Search

City Search has been around for a long time and many people still use it for their local guides

FourSquare

Local check-in and social sharing site that is hugely popular with the under 40 crowd.  Has lots of gaming aspects that can make interacting with your customers fun.

Judy's Book

A popular review site for local businesses that adds social sharing elements to the listings

Kudzu

A local listing site that lets you add photos, videos as well as other things to spruce up your listing.  Customers can also leave reviews on the site.

Yellow Pages

A brand name that everyone knows and trusts.  Like Super Pages, is a trusted source for search engines when it comes to local listings.

LinkedIn

If you aren't signed up for LinkedIn as an individual, you should go do that now.  It's a great place to network with other professionals and business owners as well as get lots of great business information from others.  You can also create a company page for your business for free.

Facebook

I assume your on Facebook already, but have you created a fan page for your business yet?  Even if you will not be spending alot of time on it, it's still a good idea to create a fan page and add your business information to it.

Hot Frog

Consistently shows up in the search engine rankings.  They are also one of the only directories that will email your statistics on how many times your listing was viewed.

Insider Pages

A recommendation site where customers leave reviews for businesses and services that they frequent.

Super Media

A full featured marketing site that lets you add a free listing but also provides other marketing options for business owners.

Local

Very popular local listing service that offers lots of upgrade options over the free listing you can claim

Localeze

Great place to add your listing, many other local platforms use the listing info from Localeze for their own websites.

Brown Book

Local business directory that gives you premium features like video and photo uploads for free

Merchant Circle

Directory for local businesses that lets you show off you expertise by answering user questions

Local Niche Sites

There are lots of local niche sites like Trip Advisor, Angie's List and Open Table that may be a good fit for your business.

 

Summary

These just a few out of hundreds of available directory, review and local listing sites that are available for listing your business information.  The ones listed above are great places to start as they are proven to help boost your business presence online.  Also, don't forget industry specific directories that may be available to you.

If I've missed and important listings, please leave them in the comments below.  If you have any questions about local listings, feel free to contact me here and i'll be sure to respond.

 

 

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Gary

CEO at 3Bug Media
Gary Shouldis is the founder of 3Bug Media, a web marketing company that helps businesses create 360 Marketing Strategies to dominate their market. His blog is read by over 20 thousand small business owners a month and has been featured in the N.Y. Times Small Business, Business Insider and Yahoo Small Business.
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