For your Local SEO campaign to work, having consistent and correct business citations is at an all time high for ranking in Google locally. According to Moz local search ranking survey, having consistent local citations comes in at position 3, so it essential that you find and correct any duplicate and inconstant citations.

NAP Format: Business Name, Address & Phone Number
These are the crucial details that need to be consistent across the web. They should accurately reflect the crucial Starting Point for this information … your Website. If any part of the NAP information found on an external site is incorrect, Google may not pass the credit onto your business.

This local citation resource combines some of the best ways to find and correct any inconsistencies in your NAP citations

 

Finding Duplicate Citations on Google Maps & Google+

 

Use Google Maps to search phone numbers, names and services, however you must set the correct city, and location.

You can search Direct from Google Maps or within Google Local

 

Google Local: https://plus.google.com/local

Search in Google local for duplicate names, phone numbers, address

 

 

Duplicate Google Business Page Tool

This tool uses the Google Places API to return all Google+ My Business pages that Google thinks might possibly match the business name and zip code you entered (non US postal codes will work as well). It’s useful for figuring out what Google+ pages are out there that are of the local business type (as opposed to Brand pages) for a given business.

Business Page Tool: www.michaelcottam.com/google-business-page-finder

 

Search Operators for Google Business Pages

The above Google business page duplicate tool above will do a pretty thorough job, but just to make sure, you can use these two search operators.

 

 

Finding Citations on the Web

 

There are three types of local business citations that we need to find and fix:

• Duplicates – Duplicate listings on the same directory
• Mismatches – Listings for your business that have the wrong Business Name, Physical Address, or Phone Number.
• Incomplete Citations – It’s important that you fill out the profiles once you’ve claimed them. Different business directories offer different fields, be sure to fill them all in.

 

 

Find Citations With Incorrect Phone Numbers

 

Search Operator Update:

Google has retired the + as a search operator because of Google+,  this can be replaced with : OR , AND

Another way is using Verbatim within the Search Tools, this will restrict search to the exact search query.

Just remember to Clear it after use.

Find Incorrect Citation with Online Tools

 

N.A.P. Hunter Lite performs searches for various combinations of a business’s name, address and phone number information to give you a look at a business’ citation profile and automatically download it to a .csv file.

With N.A.P. Hunter Lite you can have your computer do the work for you, so you can spend your time looking like a local SEO genius.

Chrome Tool: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/nap-hunter/

 

 

Moz Local creates and maintains business listings on the sites, apps, and directories that factor most into local search engine results. Once you upload your location data to Moz Local, it’s easy to push business listings to the major data aggregators. You can use Moz Local to create and update your listings, manage your location information at any time, re-verify your listings, and find and resolve duplicate listings.

Moz Local: https://moz.com/local/search

Yext Local Checker: http://www.yext.com/pl/blog-marketing/index.html

 

 

Specific Directory Citation Search Operators

 

These are useful if you only have a handful of specific business citations and or listings:
site:yellowpages.com “Business Name”

site:yellowpages.com (####) ###-### intitle:”Business Name“

site:yelp.com/biz “Business Name”

site:facebook.com (####) ###-### “reviews” -m. -m2

site:citysearch.com intitle:”Business Name”

site:superpages.com (####) ###-### intitle:”Business Name“
Remember to record your findings and inconsistent citations for contact and follow up.

For listings that are “auto generated” and that you are not paying for, remember that outreach should be polite and be patient, you may need to follow up once or twice.

If you are going to claim them, have a separate email address ready (websupport@yourdomain), yes these email address could get unwanted emails.

Take your time and work your way through.

 

Build UK Citations

 

Contact Us to Discuss your Local SEO requirements