Online business listings (aka local citations or online directory listings) are an important aspect of local search optimization. Having an abundance of accurate and enriched listings has been shown to improve the ranking of a business within local search results—on Google and other search engines.
Conversely, having incorrect or duplicate listings can hamper a business’s ability to rank well in local search and reduces their ability to get in front of a huge number of local customers. And that’s not to mention how frustrated consumers get when they find inaccurate information online.
As with many aspects of SEO, there is more than one way to achieve your goals. The same is true of citation management, and in this post we’ll take a deep dive into the two most common routes of citation building: manual submissions and local data aggregator submissions.
We also look at outsourced submissions services and services like Yext to provide an all-round view of the options available to you.
Once you’ve read this post, you’ll have a clear understanding of how each approach works, their pros and cons, and also which approach is best for you and your clients.
What are Manual Citation Submissions?
Manual Citation Submission is the updating or inputting of business information directly onto a third-party website by hand.
It’s typically done one site at a time and involves a person physically:
- visiting a website,
- searching to see if a business is listed on that website,
- creating an account on the site,
- submitting business information to update or create a listing
- verifying their account through either email or phone verification steps.
What are Local Data Aggregator Submissions?
Local Data Aggregators (LDAs) are companies that gather data about local businesses and then sells or distributes that data out to a network of local search engines, third-party directories, mapping services, GPS services, and mobile apps.
Submitting via LDAs involves creating a separate account for each one and updating or submitting business data into the LDA’s database.
The LDA then performs a verification of the business information before making this business information available to the third-party services that buy or take its data.
LDAs use a number of means to distribute their data, including FTP file dump, data feeds, and APIs.
How Long Does It Take to Complete Submissions?
Manual Citation Submissions
It takes anywhere between 5-20 minutes to submit to one site—approx 10 minutes on average.
So if you want to submit or update to 50 sites = 500 minutes = 8.3 hours
Ouch! That’s a long time which could be better spent on more valuable and interesting business tasks!
Outsourcing to Manual Citation Submission Services
Because of the time-consuming, and frankly tedious, nature of manual submissions, many businesses and SEO agencies outsource this task to specialist third-party services.
If you use a Manual Submission Service, then you only have to provide your data to them one time and they’ll submit it directly to other sites for you.
In terms of time saved, we estimate this as:
- 20 mins to upload your data one time to a Manual Submission Service
- Time saved = 8.3 hours – 20 mins = 8 hours saved
But the value of using a Manual Submission Service is not just in the time you save. Manual Submission Services often have a large database of sites that they submit to, and have detailed knowledge of the issues and requirements of each site.
For instance, almost every online business listing or directory site is different and has unique terms and conditions, rules and guidelines. A high-quality submission service will be familiar with these nuances and therefore ensure that your business listing submissions are done correctly.
BrightLocal (that’s us!) is one of the best-known and most trusted manual submission services. We are the trusted citation partner for more than 1,000+ SEO agencies and have a team of 70+ in-house submissions experts who handle more than 100,000 submissions every month. Our listings management toolkit makes it easy to build your citations, send them out into the world, and keep them up-to-date while they’re out there.
Local Data Aggregator Submissions
Submitting to one LDA takes about 20 minutes, so if you want to submit to all five main LDAs in the USA this should take you about 100 minutes.
Are there Third Parties that Submit to All Local Data Aggregators?
Please pardon the leading question… but yes, there are!
There are a number of well-known services such as BrightLocal or Moz Local that enable you to submit to all LDAs at once.
The benefits of using a service like this include:
- Saves Time: it only takes 20 minutes to submit to Brightlocal or Moz Local and we submit to all five LDAs
- Saves Money: it only costs $100 to submit to all five LDAs using BrightLocal. Submitting directly to the LDAs is typically more expensive
- Free Updates for 12 Months: you can update your business information for free within 12 months of purchasing via BrightLocal or Moz Local
If you’d like to see a full comparison of these services, then head over to this post where we compare local citation services and well-known Local Data Aggregator services.
What Do Listing Submissions Cost?
Manual Citation Submissions
Most citation sites offer a free listing option which allows you to submit some basic information about your business to create a simple listing on the site. The amount of information that a site accepts or displays for free varies from site to site. (FYI: This is something that a good Manual Submission Service will be aware of for all the sites they submit to.)
So, financially, manual submissions can cost $0. The only cost is the cost of your time: the 8.3 hours it takes to do 50 citation sites.
What Do Manual Submission Services Charge?
You typically pay a per-site fee for every listing they create or update. The range of fees is from $1 – $5 per listing (i.e. per citation site). You then need to calculate how many sites and how many locations you want to submit to to get the total cost.
This is typically a one-time fee and you don’t pay any recurring charges. If you want to make updates at any point in the future (if you move locations, for instance), then you simply pay for the service again.
Some Manual Submission Services operate a monthly recurring subscription fee which spreads the cost over a year and does offer free updates while your subscription is active.
Here is a comparison table for six Manual Submission Services:
| Service | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BrightLocal |  |
|||
| Yext | ||||
| Whitespark | |
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| Synup | ||||
| AdviceLocal | ||||
| The Hoth |
Local Data Aggregator Submissions
Here’s a table of the current charges for the three big USA aggregators: Foursquare, NeustarLocaleze, and Data Axle.
| Aggregator | |
|---|---|
| Foursquare | |
| Data Axle | |
| NeustarLocaleze |
Can I Choose Where My Listings Appear?
Manual Citation Submissions
When you submit by hand yourself, then yes, you can choose which sites you use. The only restriction may come from sites that don’t offer a free submission option. So it’s your decision whether you submit to a paid-only site, but you should evaluate these carefully to be sure they’re worth the cost.
Check out our list of top citation sites to see which we value most highly
Bundled Sites via Manual Citation Submission Services
Most citation services will bundle certain sites together and allow you to purchase that bundle. Usually, you can’t pick and choose which sites they use and you simply select the bundle or package that works best for you. To only have this option can be frustrating and restrictive for businesses and SEOs who want to hand-pick the sites they use.
At BrightLocal we have a database of 1,000+ local, niche and national directories. We allow you to select exactly which sites you want to get listed on—as long as they’re applicable for your business type (i.e. no florist directories if you’re a plumber and no San Diego directories if you’re located in Orlando).
Aggregator Citation Submissions
Short answer… no.
The LDAs make their data available to their network of sites and you don’t have any control over which sites pick up your data and which do not.
Can I Remove My Listings?
It’s typically not possible to remove a listing unless the business has closed down or moved. This is the same for both Manual and Aggregator Submissions.
Directories have a clear objective: to provide a complete set of business listings to their users. So removing a listing goes against that objective, and because your business information is in the public domain, it’s hard to get them to remove it.
Can I Remove Duplicate Listings?
Manual Citation Submissions
You can claim and update listings, but removing them usually requires contacting or messaging the site editors. Many sites don’t let you remove a listing unless there is a very good reason. Spotting a duplicate listing is usually good grounds for them to remove it as long as you can show that there is another listing that is correct and up to date.
To do this, you typically need to submit a request to the site editors to explain that the listing is a duplicate and provide evidence to support this.
Aggregator Citation Submissions
The LDAs themselves will always look to remove any duplicates within their own database. However, their automated logic is limited and they struggle to relate listings that have significant differences in name and address. So if a business changes name or moves location, the LDA usually won’t connect the two separate listings together.
If you have duplicate listings, this problem transfers down to their networks with both the correct and incorrect listing information being pushed to them.
Which Method Allows Me to Submit My Data to the Widest Set of Sites?
The answer here is simple: Data Aggregator Submissions!
Manual Citation Submissions
How widespread your data becomes really depends on how many sites you have the time and patience to submit to. The latest wisdom says that as long as you have your data correct on the top 40-50 sites, then that’s enough—at least in everything but the most competitive industries and/or locations.
Data Aggregator Submissions
Because of the networks that LDAs distribute to, they push their data into many different third-party sites and services. This ‘push’ is automated and by submitting just one time to an LDA your data will appear in lots of other sites.
Another useful aspect about data aggregators is that they distribute your data to services that don’t offer a manual submission route. For instance, certain GPS services and mobile apps don’t provide a way for you to amend or add your business data. In these cases, LDAs are your only option.
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