The author's views are entirely their own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.
First off, thank you to everyone who attended my Mozinar last week! I always find the Q&A portion of my talks to be the best part, and this blog post is going to answer all those questions that I either wasn't able to address or where I wanted to provide more information.
If your question still isn't answered, please leave a comment below and I'll do my best to help you out!
1. Please define citations.
I'd recommend reading getlisted.org's excellent wrap up of what a citation is, exactly. They also have a number of great resources if you're just getting started in the world of citations.
Basically, it's your business information (name, address, phone - the "NAP") on other websites. It doesn't need to include a link to your website, but it helps.
2. How long until Microformat/structured markup will matter for citations?
I think it already matters. I recommend using structured data on your own site, and other sites (such as Yelp, Yellow Pages) already do, although you don't have as much control over how it looks, for obvious reasons. If the site that you're placing the citation on allows for microformats, go for it!
3. Couldn't citations on sites such as YouTube and Flickr be flagged as spam?
Only if you're being spammy in your citation building. If the photo or video could contain a relevant address, I don't see an issue. For example, if the photo or video was taken at your business, then you're just saying (with a full NAP) where the photo or video was taken! I can't see how that would be considered spam - it's relevant information for the visitor.
4. How can local citations help if you are a company looking to be seen nationally not just locally?
I think that companies who are focusing on national strategies need to consider what portion of that is actually a local search. With the buy local movement, potential clients could be looking locally first for what you do, even if it's a service that can be provided across the country.
5. What if you use a virtual office?
Do you do work there? Could clients visit you there? Then you can use it as a real address. Be careful, though - changing addresses is a lot of work, so make sure that you and the virtual office provider are in it for the long haul. You'll also need to ensure that you have a unique phone number so that Google doesn't confuse you with the other businesses using that address.
One big no-no is using a PO Box as an address, even if it looks real, like from a UPS Store. The rule of thumb is "could people come to your location?" If they can't, don't use it as an address.
6. Any recommendations if your business is about to change offices?
Start finding all your citations now and get all your log ins ready in order to make updating easier. The moment you have the ability to receive mail at the new address, start making the changes. I'd also recommend reviewing getlisted.org's information about local search data providers, as this can help prioritize your efforts.
7. What about using different trackable numbers across different citations? Likewise dynamic numbers on your website?
Don't. The canonical information is Name, Address, Phone, so it's key to have a single phone number for all your citation data. I know this makes it harder for you to determine where a lead comes from, but you could try a coupon code or similar to track the call.
As for your website, avoid using dynamic numbers in content that's indexed. If you're using PPC, you can use dynamic numbers but make sure that your landing pages aren't indexed.
8. What would this look like for an organization with 500+ locations?
It's still a lot of work. I know that if you have that many locations, you're looking for a way to make that scalable. I recommend recruiting your local representatives - store managers, franchisees, owners - and working with them on these initiatives. Many times, they're already involved in organizations, sponsorships, and other good causes that are great for local citations - they're just not sharing that information as there isn't a good way to make your head office aware of it. Get them invested in what you're doing and explain to them why and how it will help grow their business.
9. I'm changing my website name to a new one, will I lose all my rankings?
You should be fine, but follow 301 redirect best practices. SEOmoz has a nice overview on how to do this.
10. I need a business to show up in Apple Maps, but can we use something other than Yelp? My clients really don't like Yelp.
It depends on what country you're in, but you might just have to make nice with Yelp, unfortunately. Andrew Shotland just started a new blog about Apple Maps.I'd recommend reading it over, especially this post on data suppliers by country.
11. How do you go about local search when you have multiple locations for the same company in the same city? For example, if you have both a retail store and a distribution/pickup centre in the same city?
If you want actual people to go to the retail store before they buy anything, then that's the location you'll be working on, not the distribution centre.
If your business has several retail locations in the same city, then I'd recommend treating them all equally as far as citation work is concerned. One thing you can do is find out if the locations are in a named neighbourhood. If it's a large city, people will often search by neighbourhood, such as "snow tires Edmonton downtown" or "snow tires Bonnie Doon" (a neighbourhood in Edmonton). Google will usually figure out what you mean. I'd recommend doing a few test searches with neighbourhood names and see what comes up.
12. Google+ Local let me put in two phone numbers, so we put in both a 1-800 number and the regular number. Should we remove the 1-800 number until we are sure that we won't be penalized for it?
I'd recommend putting the "regular" number as the main phone, and the 1-800 as the alternate phone number. Or, just don't use the 1-800 at all. Consider this: if the visitors seeing that phone number are locally-based, why do they need the 1-800 number? Seeing a 1-800 number can sometimes turn off a potential customer from calling as they may think that they're being directed to a call center as opposed to the actual retail location.
13. If I run two businesses from the same address, could I simply add a suite number to differentiate?
Yes, but you'll also need to have different phone numbers for each business, even if it's just a forwarding number. Google uses phone number as their unique identifier for the business so they will merge businesses with the same phone number and assume it's a data error instead of two separate businesses. I have seen this happen with clients in the past, and it just can't be fixed without two different phone numbers.
14. What tools/software would you recommend for finding citations? What do you recommend for finding directories that have citations?
We use Whitespark's Local Citation Finder. They also offer a citation building service, but the tool is for people who'd like to build the citations themselves.
We also use Google Alerts quite a bit - toss in your key phrases, set up Google alerts, watch the potential citation sources come to you!
But that's really just the foundation of the citation building campaign. Once you've done that, start going through the ideas in my presentation to level up what you already have.
If you'd like me to write out a more detailed post about how we use Google Alerts for citation building, please leave a note in the comments and I'll put it together.
15. This reminds me of normal link building. Do you value these citations as much as links?
It is very similar in many ways. It's only the content that varies - I want that full NAP in there, and ideally a link if we can get it.
I do value these citations just as much as links. I also find that many of these citation sources have real people who read them and will check out the business as a result. I try to avoid building links for the sake of links - our goal is always to get a link or content piece where an actual human being will see it and hopefully check out the client's business.
16. I have 3 addresses for my company, but one main office. What is the best thing for me to do?
Depends on what those other addresses are. Are they actual places that people can go? If no, don't use them and try to clean up any citations you already have. Focus on the address where real people can go.
17. Does a citation need to be in any special format? If it's listed in a blog post, can it just be Company Name, Address 1, City, State, Zip in line in the text?
That's all you need! Just make sure that the NAP corresponds to your "master" information, including commas, dashes, number signs, St vs Street, and so on. Consistency is key with citations.
18. For more "old school" clients in older industries who don't believe in social, for example a construction equipment rental company that is B2B, how have you gone about actually selling any of these strategies to them? To suggest sponsoring a bull, setting up a webcam, getting listed on a parade page, etc. would probably get me thrown out of their office. Should the focus then just be on the easy citations and the local Chambers? Nothing too fancy?
I'd say start there until you have their trust. Then you can suggest some of the wacky stuff. If you have clients who are more open to doing different things, use these ideas with them, write up a case study, and present it to your old school client.
I also find that the old school clients aren't resistant to new things - they just want to be sure that these things will work for them in terms of growing their business. It takes time and trust.
19. We have multiple offices and we have local office pages as well as our overall website. The detailed office page is more directly tied to the local information (specific addresses, phones, etc). Should we list the detailed office page as our main URL, or the main website?
Use the detailed office page, especially if you have hundreds of locations. Then the potential customer who follows that link is taken right away to the location information that's right for them.
20. Another situation I have found, is a client that only uses one phone number for multiple locations. I have created six physical Google+ Local pages for his six different locations, but all used the same phone number. Google and Bing don't really like this.
No, they sure don't. You'll need to get separate phone numbers for each location as soon as possible and change your citations to reflect the change. As I said earlier, phone number is the unique identifier and if multiple locations (especially in separate cities!) have the same phone number, you're going to have a difficult time.
21. What if your address and name on ALL sites are consistent but different from postal service?
As long as the changes aren't so different as to cause confusion for visitors or map markers you should be fine.
For example, many addresses in Montreal are formatted differently due to language differences:
3927, Rue Saint-Denis (on the website)
3927 Rue Saint Denis (Google's information)
While both look the same, the differences in the comma and dash could potentially cause issues. If you already have a Google+ Local page, look at that address and use it as your NAP information.
22. If I have multiple versions of my NAP already listed. Do you have a quick method of finding them?
Just lots of searching. Search for your business name, address (formatted as many different ways as you can think of), phone number etc. Once you find a "bad" citation, set up a Google Alert for the bad information in case more pop up later.
23. Is it still important/as important to build citations to businesses that are service area businesses? (Plumbers, etc)?
It's the most important thing you can do, especially for businesses like plumbers.
Thanks again for all the great questions! I hope I was able to help. If you still need information or have a question that I haven't addressed here, please leave them in the comments below.
