Each day, the SEO game upgrades and evolves in many directions. So, to make sure your business online presence is effective and useful, you need to follow the trends and improve your SEO strategy. Recently, the SEO marketing strategies have shifted focus from quantity to quality. This means you shouldn’t worry about the number of citations as much, but focus on the places where you post them. There we come to the tailored citations. Why it is important to tailor citations to your industry? In this article, you’ll learn about the effects of such a strategy and the importance of specifying your citations to your niche.
The purpose of citations
Before we go on to tailoring your citations, let’s learn about the purpose of them. Citations have a two-fold benefit for your business. One of them is a potential higher ranking for local searches – accurate citations on various cites make your business more visible on Google. Also, when potential customers or partners look for services or products from your industry, it will be easier for them to discover your business online. You raise the trustworthiness and legitimacy of your business, gaining more trust from your customers.
Why you should tailor citations to your industry
Here are the reasons why you should narrow your strategy and adjust citations to the specific industry you are a part of.
Targeting the audience
When posting on websites relevant to your industry, you get closer to your target audience. For example, if you run a hotel or a restaurant, you should be present on Trip Advisor, because these websites attract people who need a good place to stay or have a meal. So, to be more efficient in reaching your target audience, be sure to narrow your citations strategy to the relevant directories. Your business’ services or products are not suitable for everybody online, and that’s why the citations shouldn’t be the same as well.
Tailored citations bring more results – a better ROI
With citations that are tailored to your industry, you get closer to your target audience and therefore get more, better results. It’s a consumer-centric optimization that gives your customers what they want – and this means better results for your business. So, one of the reasons to build a custom citation plan is a better ROI – return on investment.
Avoid confusion
Another aim of using specific, tailored citations is avoiding confusion with your customers. If a customer comes across a pet shop citations on a website that is a beauty services directory, they can be really confused and leave the website. That’s why citations need to be accurate, but also relevant to the industry so your potential customers can find what they are looking for. By being in the right place and at the right time, you reach more of your potential customers.
Acquire relevant mentions
Being specific about your citations can bring you relevant industry mentions and help boost your business. If you’re visible at the right locations, you can get mentions from websites that are relevant to your industry.
Build reliability
One of the reasons why you should tailor citations to your industry is building the reliability of your business. By being present on trustworthy websites, you make visitors trust you more, and consider you a more reliable choice. However, this is not the only thing you should rely on when building trust – focus on the quality of your services and products, and the overall online presence of your business. But, don’t forget about the other tools like this that help you create a trusting relationship with your customers.
How to choose the right directories?
Sometimes, building citations in the right places is easier to say than do. Here are some tips you should consider when building your citations and tailoring them to your industry.
Well, there are a couple of ways to narrow down your citations and make them more specific. We recommend trusting this job to a professional who can help you build both general and niche citations. Also, you can refer to the lists of citations grouped by industries that can help you out. However, you’ll have to do some research and know your industry very well, to make the right choices. And finally, check your competition – both global and local. Find out their citations strategies and see what are the sites you can use as well.
Don’t forget general directories
Places that include general information shouldn’t be underestimated in your building citation strategy. These directories include places like Yelp, Google, Yahoo, Bing, Yellow Pages, etc. Even though these are not specifically related to your niche, they are widely used and most popular directories. Furthermore, make sure you submit citations to the big data aggregators such as Neustar localize, Express Update, Factual. Submit accurate citations and make sure you update contact information or any other details as soon as something changes.
The challenges
If you’re running a small business and you’re new at this, you’ll probably deal with certain challenges. One of them is difficulty in finding good citation sources. However, this shouldn’t stop you from doing ti – just have some more patience, or trust a professional to help you out.
Furthermore, another challenge might be paying for citations – this is especially tricky if you’re inexperienced and not sure if certain citations will be beneficial for your business at all. We advise doing some research, and after all – risking it a bit. Very often, taking a risk pays off, and businesses grow from investing in them.
Improve the visibility of your business
Even though it’s not the only tool, you should tailor citations to your industry because it is certainly a technique to help you gain more visitors and improve the visibility of your business on the internet. Being in the right place will make you closer to your target audience, so you should focus on selecting the relevant niche directories to get listed on.
