51 Free High-Ranking Local Business Citations

Categories
Search Engine Optimization

LAST UPDATED: March 29, 2016

If search engines were the pretty girls back in high school, consider citations to be the muscle car to getting noticed.

A citation is a mention of your business name, phone number, address, and website across the web (e.g. a yellow pages directory).

Google, Bing, and Yahoo! are search engines that track the quantity and quality of citations when determining the ranking of a particular business.

Essentially, the more exposure a business receives from high-quality websites and directories, the higher it will rank in local online search.

Translation: more people looking for your products and services will land on your website.

Aside from Facebook, Twitter, and other social profiles you should already be utilizing, I have compiled a list of the 51 best, high-ranking local business citations. All for free, of course!

Important Ranking Factors to Consider

Ford Mustang

Sometimes you need to visualize how much “detail” you should put into your citations.

This Ford Mustang is guaranteed to “pick up” attention among search engines.

Car puns aside, consider these 3 aspects when filling out citations.

Domain Authority

DA stands for “Domain Authority,” a metric developed by Moz that measures how well a website will rank on search engines.

Based on a 100-point scale, a site with a high DA is considered to have a stronger chance of ranking higher in the search engine results than a site with a low DA score.

Domain Authority is calculated by numerous aspects, but one of its driving factors is the number of quality backlinks pointing to your website.

Keep in mind that DA comes from quality linked content, so a low DA score does not necessarily equate to a low ranking.

Your DA score may even fluctuate up or down, for example, because quality backlinks have been removed or search engines are not crawling through your site as often due to the lack of rich, relevant content.

In this case, compile the domain authority of your competitors and industry leaders using the MozBar, then assess if the impact of these changes were widespread or not.

N.A.P. Information

Maybe you want to “drive” search engines back to your place.

Or rather, you want to show Google, Bing, and Yahoo! that your business online is legitimate.

By inaccurately listing your business address across many, different citations, your site becomes less visible in the local search results.

When filling out citations, use the exact N.A.P. – name, address, phone number – information found on your website.

Instead of listing multiple call tracking phone numbers, use your primary contact number for the best search results.

You can use also SEO tools like Moz Local or BrightLocal to efficiently manage your citations.

Business Categories

Choosing your business categories is one of the most essential yet overlooked practices when building citations.

If people are searching for “business consulting” or “occupational therapy,” and your business is not targeted for these categories, then your site is not visible to all the customers you are trying to reach.

Preferably, you want to select 5 relevant business categories with the first 3 categories being spot-on.

List of Free, High-Ranking Citations

Back to our muscle car analogy, search engines have a wide interest in cars.

And to get noticed, you need the best citations!

Below are 51 citations with a DA of 40 and higher.

What also brings value to these sites is that they are easy to claim and update, in case you move to a different location or want to add more relevant information.

Along with the types of directories these citations are tailored to, the sign-up column states whether or not you will need to create an account under this site.

Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines – ready, set, GO!

Citation NameDANicheRegionSign-Up
Google My Business100GeneralGlobal
Facebook100GeneralGlobal
Pinterest100GeneralGlobal
Linkedin99Business/FinanceGlobal
Bing96GeneralGlobal
Yelp93GeneralGlobal
TripAdvisor93Travel/TourismGlobal
Houzz90ContractorsGlobal
YellowPages89GeneralUSA
Foursquare87 GeneralGlobal
CrunchBase85Business/FinanceGlobal
Angie’s List85GeneralGlobal
Thumbtack83ContractorsUSA
Avvo80LegalUSA
Lanyrd80EventsUSA
Kudzu71GeneralUSA
BOTW70GeneralGlobal
Zomato70RestaurantGlobal
InsiderPages68GeneralUSA
HG67LegalUSA
Hotfrog67GeneralUSA
YellowBot65GeneralUSA
Spoke59Business/FinanceUSA
TradeKey59GeneralGlobal
Gogobot58Travel/TourismGlobal
Tupalo57GeneralGlobal
SoMuch54GeneralGlobal
Jayde54GeneralGlobal
JustLanded54GeneralGlobal
Brownbook54GeneralGlobal
Restaurants51RestaurantGlobal
DiscoverOurTown50GeneralUSA
CitySquares50GeneralUSA
Where2Go50GeneralGlobal
EZLocal49GeneralUSA
CitySlick46GeneralUSA
Cortera46GeneralUSA
Fixr46ContractorsUSA
Cylex45GeneralUSA
GoLocal24745GeneralUSA
Wand45GeneralGlobal
BizHWY43GeneralUSA
Opendi42GeneralUSA
Lacartes42GeneralUSA
ChiefMall42ContractorsUSA
SaleSpider42GeneralUSA
YaSabe42GeneralGlobal
PinBud42GeneralGlobal
MyHuckleberry41GeneralUSA
Trivok41GeneralUSA
Hubbiz40GeneralUSA

Bonus: 5 Business Citation Tips

Here are some SEO recommendations to follow when building citations:

  • Fill out as much information as possible
  • Write unique business descriptions that describe your history, niche, products and services
  • Be 100% consistent with your NAP information
  • Use a spreadsheet to track your login information
  • Revise old listings and delete duplicates

Related: How to Set Up & Optimize Google My Business

Share the Top 51 Free High Quality Citations on Twitter - Intuitive Digital

About the Author

Nick Footer

Nick Footer is an entrepreneur and founder of Intuitive Digital, a national award-winning digital marketing agency in Portland, Oregon. With over 15 years of experience, he has helped hundreds of businesses improve their online presence through search engine optimization, paid advertising, and website design.

18 thoughts on “51 Free High-Ranking Local Business Citations

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