Local citations
Also called Business citations, Directory listings, Business listings.
A local citation is any place online that mentions your business name, address and phone number, like Yelp, Angi, the Better Business Bureau, a chamber of commerce directory or a local news story. Citations help customers find you outside Google, and they give search engines more places to confirm your details. The ones that matter most are accurate and relevant to your trade and town.
Doug's Field Guide · Updated
Do citations still help you rank?
Google's own help pages name prominence as one of the three things behind local rankings, and they say it's based partly on how many websites link to your business and how many reviews you have. Citations are part of how that information gets around.
Treat citations as a way to be correct and findable, not a numbers game. A handful of accurate listings on sites people in your area actually use does more than 200 listings on directories nobody visits. For an electrician that might be the Google profile, Yelp, Angi, the BBB, Nextdoor and the local chamber. For a lawyer it's the state bar directory and the legal directories clients read. For a dentist it's your insurance networks' provider finders and health directories.
Citations also feed the AI assistants. When ChatGPT or Perplexity answers "who's a good roofer in Boise", it draws on pages across the web, and directory listings are some of the most common pages about a small business.
How do you build and clean them up?
Start by finding what's already out there. Search your business name, your phone number and any old address. Most businesses already have listings they never created, pulled in from data providers, and some of them are wrong.
Claim the ones that matter and correct them to your one official name, address and phone number. Then add the missing ones that are relevant to your trade and area. Fill each one out properly: categories, hours, a real description, photos. A half-empty listing is barely better than none.
Close or merge duplicates when a site lets you. Two listings for the same business on one directory split your reviews and confuse customers.
Then check back a few times a year. Directories update from each other and from data providers, so a fixed listing can drift back to an old phone number. A quick search of your name and number every quarter catches it.
Audit your top listings
- Search your business name and phone number and list every directory that shows on the first two pages.
- Claim the top five that you haven't claimed yet, and fix any wrong name, address, phone or hours.
- Find one trade or professional directory you're missing, like your state bar, a manufacturer's dealer locator or a trade association, and get listed.
- Search each big directory for duplicate listings of your business and request a merge or removal.
Common mistakes
- Paying for hundreds of low-quality directory submissions instead of fixing the ten that customers use.
- Creating new listings without checking for old ones, which leaves duplicates with conflicting details.
- Leaving listings half filled out, with no hours, photos or description.
How Doug does it
Doug's fix queue includes directory listings with the details already drafted, matched to the facts he keeps consistent for your business. On the done for you tier, $1,000 a month, Doug's team works the queue for you.
Terms on this page
- Citation
- Any mention of your business name, address and phone number on another website, like a directory, chamber listing or news story.
Keep exploring
- NAP consistencyYour name, address and phone number, the same everywhere they appear.
- Google Business ProfileYour free listing on Google Search and Maps, and the first thing a local customer sees.
- ChatGPT recommendationsHow ChatGPT picks which plumber, dentist or lawyer to name, and what you can fix.
- Done for youOur team works your fix queue on your accounts and reports every Monday.
Sources
Written by Doug's team from these sources and our own work with local businesses. Search engines change their rules, so check the source before a big decision.
