List of "must have" citations.

[Kel]

I was just curious what are the citations that you automatically grab for a client as soon as they sign on. What are your top 10-20 citations that will move the needle quickly. I would just like to see a comparison from all of the local experts that roam these threads.

 

[WineCountryCarpetCleaning]

IMHE that depends on the industry, not gonna be the same for a plumber and a dentist

 

[Kel]

True... We could hit the main categories of healthcare, service based businesses (roofing, construction, heat & air, etc), retail businesses and so on and so forth. I was just curious what citations the pros immediately go to... in general. Where is the juiciest low hanging fruit located?

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Kel, moved your post to the Citations Forum. If you click that link you'll find tons of great info on the subject and lots of lists.

But this is still a great question to ask and hopefully other members will weigh in.

 

[apolodor]

It depends not just on the industry, but on the targeted location as well. Building citations on US sites and directories for a German website is equal to zero.

 

[Kel]

Ok... This is going in a different direction that anticipated. I understand a New England lawyer directory isn't going to do much good for an Oklahoma plumber. I just thought there would be some lists of standard, go to citations that worked (nearly) universally. Like Citysearch or YP and so on...

 

[Linda Buquet]

Yes there are, like I said in the citations forum there are a bunch of general lists.
Exactly what you are looking for.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Here are just a few, there are tons more here in the citations forum.

http://localsearchforum.catalystema...op-ranking-local-business-directories-us.html
http://localsearchforum.catalystema...73-list-local-citation-sources-dont-suck.html
http://localsearchforum.catalystema...-local-business-directories-top-citation.html
http://localsearchforum.catalystema...41-best-sources-local-citations-city-u-s.html

 

[Kel]

I will check them all out. Thanks for the help. Sorry for the re-post.

 

[David Deering]

I think that getlisted.org is a great place to start, because it has all of the major players of online directories in that list. To me, those are the "fundamental" citations for any business. Then start going down the list of others, such as the ones that Linda is pointing you to. It's also definitely important to get into niche directories that relate to the particular business or industry, and don't forget about local directories, too.

 

[chrisauman]

Hi Kel,

I think the responses here are good advice. When you start building citations for clients you should consider a list that is NOT one size fits all. But, in general there are priority general citations outside of Google, Yahoo and Bing Local. There are a lot of good lists out there as Linda has pointed out. Here are a few that we target at the top of our list because of how consistently they show up within the search results for local searches:

Your Local BBB and Chamber
CitySearch/CityGrid
yellowpages.com
Supermedia.com
HotFrog.com
Local.com
DexKnows.com
WhitePages.com
Manta.com
MerchantCircle.com
InsiderPages.com

 

[Mike Wilton]

I agree that its going to vary by industry, but I usually have my team start with the core citation sources and data providers in the local search ecosystem (which you can find here: http://getlisted.org/resources/local_search_ecosystem.pdf) and then pepper in a few varying sources from the specific industry.

This is a great resource for that: Best Sources for Local Citations by Category (U.S.) | GetListed.org

Hope that helps! After the initial run then we just build continuously from there identifying where the company is currently being sited and using lists like the ones below to find more opportunities.

• The Ultimate List of Local Citation Sites | Search News Central
• The Definitive List of Local Search Citations | LocalVisibilitySystem.com
• Local Citation Building Study Part 2: What the Pros Think | Local Search Marketing Blog by NGS

 

[sergiuliano]

Ok... This is going in a different direction that anticipated. I understand a New England lawyer directory isn't going to do much good for an Oklahoma plumber. I just thought there would be some lists of standard, go to citations that worked (nearly) universally. Like Citysearch or YP and so on...

The correct answer for you to find which citations sources have the highest authority on Google for your targeted niche and location is to analyze top ranked website's citation sources.

You will be amazed to find out that generic citations ecosystems as the ones getlisted org recommends are not even in the first 30 Google Results of citation sources for your targeted niche/locations

For example for for law related keywords, directories as YELP, YP, FourSquare etc... and so on, have a very low value as citation sources compared to the Local Lawyer's Chambers websites... there are plenty of similar examples on different niches

Now, it depends about what you want to deliver to your clients, if you want to only charge them for posting citations on different directories, then you can try generic lists ( generic can also help is some situations ), but if you want real results, then try completing the Local SEO Reverse Engineering process I have described above in order to have the best results.

Hope my answer is what you were looking for