Citations on Google Maps provide information about your business location published across the web, including your business name, street address, city, state, zip code, and website URL. In addition, the citations of your business typically appear in directories and other resources on the Internet that search engines use to determine the accuracy and relevance of your business location.

What Are Citations

Your paper must contain references to the sources you consulted while writing it.Including citations in your paper gives credit to the authors of the material you mention and allows your reader to find out more about what you are talking about.

Bibliographies (or works cited pages or references pages) are alphabetically arranged at the end of your paper. In a bibliography, you list all the sources you have consulted during the research process.

As well as footnotes and parenthetical references, there are in-text citations that alert the reader to cited material within the body of the paper and where to find it. Citations are used in conjunction with bibliographies.

google map citations for local seo

google map citations for local seo

What are Google Map Citations for Local SEO?

Google Map citations consistent with your Google business page are the most authoritative for local SEO.

Your business name, address, and phone number (NAP) must appear exactly as they appear on your Google business page.

What Are Local SEO Citations?

Local SEO citations aim to increase a business’s visibility and rank in local search results and Google Maps with citations (local business data). Additionally, local SEO citations help reinforce the validity of a local business’s exact location.

When it comes to Google Maps citations, I get asked what local SEO citations are?In many ways, they are the same thing.

Local businesses build Google Map citations to build consistency and authority of their business data across the web. By creating Google Maps citations, you are, in essence, engaging in local SEO citation building to improve your rankings and visibility in local search.

Citations Locals: What Are They?

Local citations are seven data points that make up a local citation. The data points are as follows:

  • Business name
  • Address of your business
  • City
  • Your state
  • Postal code
  • Telephone number
  • Website address

The seven data points we refer to as a local citation make up a local citation.

Link Citation Building – What Is It?

Citation link building involves including your website URL in your citation. The process of citation link building occurs when a citation for a business includes a website URL.

Link building with citations is not considered a true link-building strategy by some.In my opinion, however, building citation links are not only legit. Still, they can also be a powerful way to build massive amounts of authority back to your website or domain authority.

If you are doing local SEO for lawyers, you might add your law firm to the Findlaw directory as an example.

If your law firm has a website, the URL would be included in your law firm’s citation on Findlaw.At my last check, Findlaw.com had a DA91 (domain authority of 91).

You have just built a link from a DA 91 website back to your own website by including your website URL in your Find law citation. Even if you don’t consider that link building, that’s a very relevant and strong link pointing back to your website.

Citation Portfolio: What Is It?

Let me briefly explain what the term “citation portfolio” means since I’ve mentioned it a couple of times already. Citation portfolios represent all citations published on the web about your business.

This is your citation portfolio if your business has 150 citations published across 150 different websites and directories. In this sense, it is similar to a stock portfolio made up of shares from 150 different companies.