Local citations is a term used to describe signals on local listings showing that a business is legitimate and trustworthy.
As you can see in the screenshot, the local results when searching for a photographer in Dallas, Texas brings shows the following three photographers. first. The first of which contains no reviews, but is linked to a Google Plus Local business page. The second photographer has three reviews and the third has seven reviews and five stars.
The star rating and the review count are considered local citations.
When a potential customer sees reviews he/she will be more likely to click on the search result and visit the photographer’s website.
So how do you get more citations?
If you ever received an email from a customer that contains a nice testimonial, reply with a request for the person to copy/paste that testimonial in a review at your local listings. Provide the customer with full instructions on how to do it.
I know it is time consuming to write up a tutorial for each site, but it’s worth the effort.
If you can clearly guide your customers through the review process then you’re more likely to get the reviews posted. Include text, screenshots and even a video tutorial if you think it will help your customers.
Where do you need citations?
There are many places where you can have your business listed and gather reviews. Here are a few of them that I highly recommend focusing on.
- Google Plus Local
- Facebook Business Page
- Yelp
- Foursquare
- Bing Local Listing
Where else?
Once you have those local listings set up and citations posted then start thinking about the smaller local listings like niche websites that get less search traffic than others. If you’re a wedding photographer then wedding sites are great for getting listed. Not all allow for reviews, but getting features on a wedding
Thanks for reading and good luck,
Scott
