Location3’s Lacuesta Contributes to Local Citation Survey

The fourth edition of BrightLocal’s Expert Local Citation Survey was released on Friday, and Location3 Director of Owned and Earned Matt Lacuesta was chosen to be part of the panel that included 22 local SEO experts. The panel shared their thoughts and analysis on the effects of citations on local businesses.

Here are a few key findings, according to BrightLocal:

• 90% of experts believe accurate citations are important to local search ranking
• 59% think citations are less important than they were 12 months ago
• The most important factors in citation sites are: 1. Industry relevance, 2. Local relevance, 3. Domain authority
• Local SEO experts recommend niche and industry directories above other structured citations
• Phone numbers, city, ZIP, and URL need to be exact matches, while suite number is less important

Here are a couple of excerpts from the report.

Which types of unstructured citations do you favor?

Lacuesta: “We like citations that are with known entities such as local news stations, educational institutions or industry related groups. I think citations that are relevant to what you do and where you are are higher quality. That being said, you’ll still want to be in the main national directories as a foundational piece to your local citation profile.”

Which approach to building citations is the most accurate, fastest, and most cost-effective?

Lacuesta: A problem with broad networks of citations from some of the big real time distributors is that when companies update NAP information for a location, that data is pushed around the network but not all changes happen at once, some can take months before the partner makes an update. That leaves a local business’s citations with conflicting old and updated information across different sites which may create some doubt with Google to the validity of that NAP information.

For more insight and analysis, check out the full report from BrightLocal