Key Findings
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90% of experts believe accurate citations are important to local search ranking
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59% think citations are less important than they were 12 months ago
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The most important factors in citation sites are: 1. Industry relevance, 2. Local relevance, 3. Domain authority
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Local SEO experts recommend niche and industry directories above other structured citations
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Phone numbers, city, ZIP, and URL need to be exact matches, while suite number is less important
In the world of local SEO, citations have long been established as a necessity. But, what effect do citations have on SEO today?
To find out, we asked a panel of 22 of the biggest local search experts to share their experience, knowledge, and insights into how citations affect local businesses today.
Our expert panel shares their thoughts on topics including:
- Which types of structured and unstructured citations they favor
- How many citations a new business needs
- The level of accuracy needed for each NAP+W attribute
This is the fourth time we’ve run the Expert Local Citation Survey, having previously published editions in 2016, 2015, and 2013. Where relevant, we’ve included comparisons to past editions of this survey.
A huge thank you to everyone who shared their excellent insights with us. You can find the full list of participants in the Contributors panel, and read their thoughts and opinions throughout.
How important are accurate citations to local search ranking?
As we found in our recent Local Citations Trust Report, incorrect or inconsistent online business information damages the trust of consumers. In this report, a huge 68% of consumers admitted they would stop using a local business if they found incorrect information on online directories.
But it’s not just consumers that are affected by citations—it’s search rankings, too. 90% of the experts in our study report that accurate citations are important to local search ranking. While citations have become known as a foundational tactic in local SEO, there’s little to suggest they’ve become obsolete. In fact, none of the experts said that citations aren’t important in search rankings.
However, the below insights show how the use of citations is changing—exploring where the experts recommend having citations, how many a new business should aim for, and what’s changed over the last few years.
Expert Insights
"Ben Fisher"
Steady Demand at Steady Demand
"Cori Graft"
Seer Interactive at Seer Interactive
"Adam Dorfman"
Reputation.com at Reputation.com
"Andrew Shotland"
Local SEO Guide at Local SEO Guide
Are citations more or less important now than they were 12 months ago?
While every expert believes citations remain important to rankings, most think they’ve become less important than in the past.
When we’ve previously run this survey, a smaller number of experts said citations were becoming less important. Two years on from our last edition, 59% of the experts believe citations have become less important—significantly more than the 19% who thought this in 2016.
However, this is by no means bad news for local SEO professionals providing citation services to their clients. Citations remain an important piece of the local SEO puzzle—but now this puzzle has grown to include other important ranking factors too.
Expert Insights
"David Mihm"
Tidings at Tidings
"Susan Hallam"
Hallam at Hallam
"Greg Gifford"
DealerOn at DealerOn
"Max Minzer"
ReEngage Consulting at ReEngage Consulting
"Will Scott"
Search Influence at Search Influence
What is more important, quality or quantity of citations?
Top quality sites are by far the favored route for citation building from our experts. But what constitutes a top quality site?
One approach to consider is targeting the top citation sites, like the ones with the highest domain authorities. It’s also worth looking at others citation sites in your industry, and making sure you have a presence in the niche places your competitors are. We recently released our SEO Citations Study, which explores the citation profiles of 122,125 businesses across 26 different industries to find out which sites were most popular for each business type. Focus on these quality sources first, and look to your competitors to know what quantity works best for your locality.
Expert Insights
"Bernadette Coleman"
Advice Local at Advice Local
"Greg Gifford"
DealerOn at DealerOn
"Adam Dorfman"
Reputation.com at Reputation.com
How important are the following factors when choosing which citation sites to use?
When identifying which citation sites a local business should be on, there are a number of factors the expert panel value.
The Most Important Citation Site Features
- Industry relevance
- Local relevance
- Domain authority
- Displays user-generated reviews
- Audience size
The least important factors to the experts were NoFollow backlinks, the ability to use photos and videos, and the inclusion of links through to social profiles. However, these were still valued to a lesser degree.
Expert Insights
"Cori Graft"
Seer Interactive at Seer Interactive
"Mary Bowling"
Ignitor Digital at Ignitor Digital
"Gyi Tsakalakis"
AttorneySync at AttorneySync
"Damian Rollison"
Brandify at Brandify
"Casey Meraz"
Juris Digital at Juris Digital
Which type of structured citations provide the greatest authority?
Structured citations are business listings that have a clearly defined presentation of a business’s name, address and contact details. On many sites, these listings use structured markup so that search engines can easily discover and interpret the data.
Since 2016, the importance of niche and industry directories have hugely grown – with 64% of the experts choosing this as their most valued source of structured citations. This is nearly double the number of experts who chose this in the last survey.
National directories were favored by 18% of experts, remaining fairly static from 2016. However, when you compare this to 2015, there has been a significant drop in popularity.
Expert Insights
"Bernadette Coleman"
Advice Local at Advice Local
"Dev Basu"
Powered by Search at Powered by Search
"Joel Headley"
PatientPop at PatientPop
Which types of unstructured citations do you favor?
The experts were able to choose up to three choices. Social media company pages was a new addition to this year’s survey.
An unstructured citation is the inclusion of a business’s NAP on non-listing and directory sites. According to the local SEO experts, the most important sources of unstructured citations are:
- Industry associations
- Local government sites
- Local school / college sites
- Social media company pages
- Blog sites
Interestingly, local government sites have grown in importance since the last survey. Local blog sites, on the other hand, have fallen out of style.
Expert Insights
"Susan Hallam"
Hallam at Hallam
"Joel Headley"
PatientPop at PatientPop
"Matt Lacuesta"
Location3 at Location3
"Ben Fisher"
Steady Demand at Steady Demand
"Bernadette Coleman"
Advice Local at Advice Local
What is your priority when building citations?
When setting your citations strategy, the experts recommend cleaning up inaccurate citations before beginning to build new ones. The majority recommend doing both together.
If you’re not sure which are the primary and secondary data providers discussed below, you can find the top 50 citation sites by domain authority here.
Our tools offer a quick and easy way to identify duplicate and inconsistent citations, as well as to build the new citations that matter to your business from our network of over 1,400 national, niche and local citation sites. Find out which citation sites you should be targeting with a 14-day free trial.
Expert Insights
"Mary Bowling"
Ignitor Digital at Ignitor Digital
"Colan Nielsen"
Sterling Sky at Sterling Sky
"David Mihm"
Tidings at Tidings
How accurate does each NAP+W attribute need to be?
In local SEO, NAP+W stands for name, address, phone number, and website URL.
We often receive questions from local businesses about how correct and consistent their NAP+W data really needs to be to keep Google happy.
Nearly every expert told us phone numbers need to be an exact match. The majority of the panel also said the city, ZIP code, and URL needs to be completely accurate. Suite number is the least important part of NAP+W, so if yours isn’t completely consistent, don’t stress!
Expert Insights
"Joel Headley"
PatientPop at PatientPop
"Mary Bowling"
Ignitor Digital at Ignitor Digital
"Tom Waddington"
Wachae at Wachae
For a typical new business, how many citations should you aim to build in the first 2 months?
For new businesses just starting out, it’s evident that they should begin building citations.
Citations are a foundational factor in local search ranking. The initial flush of high quality, consistent citations can have a valuable influence on a new business, but continuing to build these at a steady rate doesn’t have the same level of impact. Of course, it doesn’t hurt to have more, but the best benchmark is to compare your business to established competitors near you. To find out what’s the norm in your industry, explore our interactive industry SEO Citations Study.
While there was no real agreement on the number of citations a new business needs, the average number of citations to build in the first couple of months is 35, with a median range of 21-30.
Expert Insights
"Joy Hawkins"
Sterling Sky at Sterling Sky
"Cori Graft"
Seer Interactive at Seer Interactive
"Phil Rozek"
Local Visibility System at Local Visibility System
"Damian Rollison"
Brandify at Brandify
Which approach to building citations is the most accurate, fastest, and most cost-effective?
There are a number of factors to consider when deciding how to build and clean up your citations.
We asked the experts to answer which type of citation service they would use based on the three needs outlined in the project management triangle: quality, speed, and price.
Based on these different needs, the experts recommended a range of solutions. When developing your citations strategy, it’s important to identify what is most important to the local business.
"Gyi Tsakalakis"
AttorneySync at AttorneySync
"Casey Meraz"
Juris Digital at Juris Digital
"Matt Lacuesta"
Location3 at Location3
How would you describe your approach to managing citations?
"Will Scott"
Search Influence at Search Influence
"Susan Hallam"
Hallam at Hallam
"Ben Fisher"
Steady Demand at Steady Demand
"Max Minzer"
ReEngage Consulting at ReEngage Consulting
"Phil Rozek"
Local Visibility System at Local Visibility System
Resources
Citation building remains an important piece of the local SEO puzzle. If you’d like to find out how our team of professional citation builders can help you identify the best citation sites for your local business, you should check out our listings management solutions.
For more information on local citations, why not take a look at some of our other resources:
- Top 50 General Citation Sites
- Citation Sites with DoFollow and NoFollow Links
- Best Local Citation Sites by US State
- Top Local Citations by Business Category
- SEO Citations Study: How Many Citations Do You Need to Compete?
- Local Citations Trust Report
Another huge thank you to all the experts who shared their insights for this report. We’ll be continuing to track the usage and effectiveness of citations over the coming years, so let us know in the comments below any questions or thoughts you have on the impact of local citations.
