What citation sites would you say are still important in 2020?

[sixthcitysarah]

Working on a new office listing and we no longer use Yext, so in trying to do a ton manually, I was curious which ones still hold value nowadays?

I have seen mixed things on if they even are still "important" for local SEO, or if they are simply just a means of brand reputation management.

Besides obviously a GMB listing, what other listings would you say are necessary?

 

[Phil Rozek]

@sixthcitysarah, here are the sites typically in my flight path (for US clients):

US-citation-worksheet

docs.google.com

A couple may not be applicable or worth the effort, depending on your industry. YMMV. Speaking of which, you'll want to spend just as much effort digging up and working on "niche" citations: listings on sites specific to your industry, or area, or both. Whitespark has some good lists of those: Local SEO Resources & Guides - Whitespark

 

[StephanieNewton]

Hey, @sixthcitysarah!

More and more, citations are seen as something to serve the customer rather than local SEO rankings, so primarily you'll want to get found on any sites your clients' customers would be present on. For this, I'd recommend using a free tool such as our Local Listings Health Scanner — it shows you if the business in question is present on 15 of the major listings sites and/or if any NAP errors are present.

I'd also recommend getting listed on niche citation sites that are more industry-specific. A list like this should help with finding the relevant sites: Top Local Citations by Business Category.

Best of luck

 

[Contractor]

@Phil Rozek Hi Phil, I am curious about City-Data. You can enter a business there? I couldn't find it.

 

[sixthcitysarah]

@sixthcitysarah, here are the sites typically in my flight path (for US clients):

US-citation-worksheet

docs.google.com

A couple may not be applicable or worth the effort, depending on your industry. YMMV. Speaking of which, you'll want to spend just as much effort digging up and working on "niche" citations: listings on sites specific to your industry, or area, or both. Whitespark has some good lists of those: Local SEO Resources & Guides - Whitespark

Thank you so much for sharing!!

 

[Adam Kaufman]

From my research, Irrelevant data sites like Hotfrog, Brownbook, City Squares, etc. Offer no value at all. 1- Zero consumer traffic. 2- Not relevant as a citation as it was years ago. 3- No longer ranks as a directory in Google SERP 4- If everybody is doing it, then what value is there, besides the NAP argument we have all used to earn business with mostly fake citation reports that are designed to fear a business into spending money on updating a site that has zero relevance.
This should be a great post...

 

[djbaxter]

Hey, @sixthcitysarah!

I'd recommend using a free tool such as our Local Listings Health Scanner — it shows you if the business in question is present on 15 of the major listings sites and/or if any NAP errors are present.

That is very cool! Just trying it out now.

 

[StephanieNewton]

That is very cool! Just trying it out now.

Hey, glad you like it – thanks @djbaxter!

 

[hajnasiewicz]

Yelp is huge in the grocery industry.

 

[Phil Rozek]

@Phil Rozek Hi Phil, I am curious about City-Data. You can enter a business there? I couldn't find it.

Yes, you can (last I checked): Business Profile Addition

 

[Justin Mosebach]

In addition to what @Phil Rozek said in looking for niche directories, look for hyper-local directories. Examples:

• Newspaper/TV/radio stations sometimes have a "Business Directory"
• Tourism directories specific to your location (ex. lancasterpa.com)
• Chambers of Commerce
• etc.