How to List Your Business on Local Citations in 2024 (3 ways)

[@thencandesigns]

Looking for quicker SEO wins for your SmallBiz that serves local customers? Steal My SEO Strategy in this video: ruclips.net/video/E9lrWJR7hxg/видео.html

[@donnymacneish1761]

Love your videos! Hopefully, in the near future, the business insurance guy reaches out for your services!

[@thencandesigns]

Yeah... that would be pretty cool, huh? 😆 Those dang corporate sites make it hard, but there are always more tasks to be done. Thanks for commenting, Donny!

[@CammyIscool-mh8zd]

Nice video would love to see the results and which you thought was best! Also If I were to buy citations should It link to homepage url or service page?

[@thencandesigns]

Thanks for the feedback! So, of course, there will be a follow-up, but I have some more internal testing I want to do first 🤔
Here are some early results, though:
BrightLocal (New Site): Went from 50th to 15th over the time of the campaign
OsbornDM (Established, Service page): Went from 13th to 9th (though, I can't find most of the links, and they all point to the homepage)
Fiverr (Established, Homepage): Went from 3rd to 3rd 🫤
My thoughts:
Maybe it has more to do with gaining the links "naturally." It appears that BrightLocal pieces them out over time, while the person on Fiverr busted them out in one night. So, I think BrightLocal or WhiteSpark are better options. I would recommend pointing citations to the homepage. Then I would work on locally- or industry-relevant backlinks to the service pages, like I did in this video: ruclips.net/video/RAtAsrgzwA8/видео.html
Please let me know if you have anymore questions!

[@jay-sig2058]

Thank you! May I ask you a question? I am going to do the citations for my 4 stores, they are in the different locations. How can I name each store when I do the citation? Adding the location name after the name?

[@thencandesigns]

Good question, and tough one to answer here.
You have 4 locations, but how many will you *ever* have? If it’s more, than GBP rules say you do same name and it will be different locations on the backend (think Walmart).
If you have 4 or fewer, it might make sense to keyword stuff names, however, if Google catches on, your name will be changed and you *could* get suspended.
You asked about citations, but GBP is the most important citation, make sure you get that right.
Other question is: Do these each have a landing page under one main domain? If so, just build the citations toward the main page.
Let me know if you have further questions.

[@thencandesigns]

Not saying you should build *any* citations to local pages, just don’t wanna start there.

[@dturner73]

Do you have a process, or know of one, for building citations for city-service pages using Brightlocals' citation builder service? My business has one location that services many cities in Los Angeles County. I'd like to build citations for these pages as I create additional city-service pages.

[@thencandesigns]

Great question! In case you couldn't tell from the video, I don't like citations, and I'm skeptical how much they help in 2024. I would check out this video where I talk about getting (legit) local backlinks: ruclips.net/video/RAtAsrgzwA8/видео.html
That said, if you're just churning and burning citations for your city pages, I'd just use Fiverr.
What's the industry? What's the search volume/KD? How strong is the competition? Sometimes a well-optimized city page is all you need 🤔

[@dturner73]

@@thencandesigns Thanks for the reply. To your last point, I have ranked local pages in LA just by having good on-page SEO.
I asked about Brightlocal b/c that's what I use to manage our local SEO. Any idea?

[@thencandesigns]

🤔 I think I understand the question better now. Am I right that you’re asking how to repeat the process over and over in Bright Local, as it appears you can only set one page?
“You need to create one Citation Builder campaign per location if you have less than 50 Locations.” Source: help.brightlocal.com/hc/en-us/articles/360023190253-Can-I-create-one-Citation-Builder-campaign-for-several-Locations-at-once
So it appears maybe you just do a different campaign for each location.
This sounds expensive, tho 😬

[@thencandesigns]

On second thought, I think this might cause more problems than good. I mean, at the end of the day, these citation platforms are only expecting you to post for one page, one location. Unless you have a bunch of legitimate locations for these surrounding cities, that might throw up some red flags or even confuse the algorithm.
Idk… I’m just wondering if there are some other opportunities out there.
Feel free to check out the marketing review on my site. No charge. I’ve consulted with SmallBiz owners and other agency owners, too. thencandesigns.com/review