Comments on: Local SEO: 20 Authority Citation Places

By: need more traffic

need more traffic — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 01:05:36 +0000

Yes, this seems to be a very hot topic this year.

I find the best place to find citations is in your competitors places pages.

However, it is frustrating how long citations take to show in Google maps, and also how many business are earning citations through web pages that aren’t even citing them! I’ve seen some businesses earn citations just because their city is named on a website!

By: AcrylicWeb

AcrylicWeb — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 17:11:23 +0000

Thank you for sharing this – it’s been one of my favourite reads of my day and I will definately be following your posts.

Just one note though that the link to Infoserve has a typo (an extra http).

Carolina x

By: Abbie

Abbie — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 07:02:31 +0000

Thanks Gareth and also Andrew for the additional suggestions. I was also going to mention FreeIndex – it’s where I try and bully errr I mean persuade my clients to leave a review

Will get cracking on some of the other suggestions. I had already followed David Mihm’s suggestions but there are many more on your list to work through. Great!

PS – Web Design in Maidstone, Thomson Local offers a free listing. I have added one recently.

By: web design in Maidstone

web design in Maidstone — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 15:46:10 +0000

nice selection… would like to add that some of them are paid ones – especially Thopson Local is really expensive one… but still it is very good for your website to be listed there :/

thank You

p.s. you need delicious button here

By: Rob

Rob — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 19:48:23 +0000

Great post, thanks a lot. I found though that I got a LOT of telesales calls after submitting my site to these directories. People ringing up “to verify my listing” then try and sell me an enhanced one (fair enough) but also from companies that mentioned a couple of the above websites but were otherwise unrelated, just trying to sell me SEO services. Very annoying – obviously one or more of the above passed on my info.
Anyway, thanks again for the post.

By: Gareth

Gareth — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 14:51:12 +0000

Hi Andrew, thanks for dropping by and cheers for those other sites. Yep, freeindex turns up a lot in citations too, the pages can also rank OK in organic search results too.

By: Gareth

Gareth — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 14:44:08 +0000

Thanks Geoff – Yep good point about the facebook ‘likes’ on Yelp. I think these will be really important when Facebook launches its internal search engine…I’m sure this is coming soon.

By: Geoff

Geoff — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 21:49:40 +0000

Great post – one of the most authoritative I have seen on this topic for UK businesses.

For some of the above there is an additional social marketing value which makes listing on these sites an absolute must.

For example, registered users of Yelp can link their Yelp accounts to their Facebook account. This allows them to “like” a business or service on both services – with “likes” appearing on their Facebook Wall thus making a contribution to word of mouth campaigns.

Reviews on many of the above also contribute to customer acquisition.

By: Andrew Baker

Andrew Baker — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 21:45:41 +0000

Great post Gareth and yes I agree after studying local search and a wide range of niches myself over the last year I too have found these same local directory sources essential for citations and in some cases reviews… In addition to your list above I would add the following UK local directory sites…

Freeindex.co.uk

Localmole.co.uk

Cylex-uk.co.uk

Zettai.net

UK-local-search.co.uk

As well as these generic directories I always make an effort to source city or region specific citation sites as I am a firm believer that citations from these sites provide more authority to a business’s Google Places Page.

For example in my home town of Edinburgh I use sites such as:-

edinburghonline.co.uk

edinburghdirectory.info

edinburghshopper.co.uk

Finally I always investigate the niche or sector I’m working in so for example estate agents… there are 10-20 property directory sites in the UK that list estate agencies and Google do scrape these sites. Again very relevant sites to target and they will provide that much needed trust for your business listing.

Cheers,
Andrew

By: Gareth

Gareth — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 08:46:24 +0000

You sure Pete…just had a quick look and they seem ok to me.