Google Places Citations
An important piece to getting your local site ranked on Google is the citations for your site in your Google places listing (and some that may not show up in Google Places)
Here are some surprising citations we have seen in Google Places listings, and some that are not surprising but worth the trouble of obtaining.
- Linked in Company profile
- BBB membership
- Craig’s list (classified advertising)
- Allbusines.com
- Yelp.com (business listing
- Servicemagic.com (Customer)
- Angie’s list ( Business Listing
- Yellowbot.com
- Local.yahoo.com
- www.denverpreferred.us
- www.hotfrog.com
- www.123people.com
- www.usaexplorer.com
And, from our work it does appear you will get more citations from your own site if your pages are well indexed in Google. Use Google web master tools (free) and submit your site map. This of course is good for normal SEO, but appears to help in your Google places ranking as well.
There is some reason to assume that Google has diminished the value of your citations, and Google places optimization in General as it relates to your sites ranking. My feeling is Google has lost some faith in its Google places ranking system due to the MANY programs it has encountered, and may be taking a bit of a breather, or a step back and figure it it period.
Some of this assumption is based on watching new listings over the last 6 months, and how they do not reflect the same information as listings from 12 or 18 months ago, even though they should.
But the one thing we know is your rankings are impacted by both the Citations your site has and it’s links, and that Google does take your Google places listing into account for your over all rankings for local intent keywords.
Don’t make the mistake of only focusing on Link’s. A well balanced portfolio of Links, Content, citations, and more content will go a long way. Do remember, Getting your site visible is about promoting your site as if Google didn’t exist. If you are doing anything just because you think Google likes it, it probably will not be a very good long term tactic.
Related articles
- Major System Errors On Google Places On Business Updates (seroundtable.com)
[New Post] Google Places Citations – via #twitoaster http://salesjumpstart.net/blog/2011/03/1…
Great thinking! That really brakes the mold!
Interesting stuff
– Citations are as you hint at is a ‘Google places’ equivalent – to a back link to your site (for ranking in Google organic) search.
But the key question I really struggle with is this:
If you are a local business and you have invested heavily in a web site and you have been driving back links to gain ranking in Google organic (Or indeed you planned to make new investments in a website for this same purpose) – Is there any point in having a website at all – now you are going to be mostly dependent upon Google places?
The first 7 – 10 results are now Google places for the local search to your business – And bearing in mind that the 1st page placing / rank occupancy gets 42% click through and currently location 10 gets 4% – Doesn’t this mean that any investment in your web site is going to be severely diluted in its ability to get traffic – as it will always have Google places listings in front of the their site even when achieving position one in a Google organic rank placement?
Jeremy,
As our research continues to show that a site that has good quality back links will rank higher in the “maps” than those that don’t, it continues to make a great deal of sense to seek out great links to a site.
Very difficult to get a site on the first page under a keyword , even in Places (Maps) with out links. The difference these days is business owners need to look for real value links…. Business Associations, and other local sites that are related, but do not provide a directory.