In order to understand the types of citations sites, you need to know just what citations are. A citation is basically a mention of your business on another website. It doesn’t have to be a business website. It can be a news website or a blog of some sort even. A citation almost always includes a link to your website which is why these are important. This is how the word about your business is spread. People that are online searching might just discover your business and the services you provide over another website. So from this, you can conclude that citations are very important as they can help better your business. And so do aggregators.
We will explain aggregators further in the below article. Here is also where you will be able to read about the different types of citations sites and aggregators and just why they are so important for your business’s website. There are plenty of things to talk about so let us tell you as much as you need to know about this topic. And make sure to contact our AZ Citation Services for additional information and professional help.
What are aggregators?
As we have already explained briefly what citations are, we have to explain what aggregators are. They are actually called data aggregators and they run the world so to say. Data aggregators actually supply information to major search engines. Search engines are Google, Safari, Mozilla, and others. Data aggregators are where businesses pst listings. This indicated that having a good listing on an aggregator can help better your Google reputation.
Data aggregators collect various kinds of information. Here are the four best data aggregators:
- Factual
- Acxiom
- Infogroup
- Localeze.
These data aggregators provide business information that search engines are looking for in order to place your business website on the right page. This information is what the customers need to be able to find easily about your business which is why they are important. And so are citations if you want your business to grow. This is why you have to make sure that you have as much as possible.
Which resources use aggregators?
Here are a couple of websites that use data aggregators:
- Google Maps
- Bing Local
- Yahoo Local
- Yellow Pages
- Apple.
These are all resources you use on a daily basis. This just indicates how important data aggregators are and why you should pay attention to providing the needed information to the aggregators such as Factual and other ones we have mentioned.
More about citations
Both citations and aggregators are very important. We can’t really pick which one is more important but they are similar in a way. They are related to each other. Citations are mentions of your website or business on other websites. There are a couple of pieces of information that should be included in the citation. NAP is short for the information needed. To be more precise, it is Name, Address, Phone number. Citations are a good way to advertise and promote your business across the web.
Different types of citations sites
There are different types of websites where you will find citations. Maps are the most common ones if you have a business. Make sure your business finds its way to every map that there is out there no matter where it is located. You just have to make sure that the information is the same across all the sites where a citation can be found. If just one is off, this makes Google ranking worse. Even if your business doesn’t have an address, you can still find a way to list on Google Maps without an address.
Yellow Pages are where you should also have a citation. This is just so people can more easily access the information needed. This is where business listings can be found and a lot of people still use yellow pages to check whether a business exists, where it is located, the contact number of the business, the link to the website, and the working hours. There are plenty of things that you can state on yellow pages.
Blogs are also a good place to have some citations. There are plenty of blogs where you can have your business mentioned. This is the most common type of citation. Business owners pay blogs to mention their business. This is exactly how both sides earn money. The business is getting a citation and an advertisement of a sort and the blog gets the money from mentioning the business. It is just how it works and it is the best way to ensure you have plenty of citations.
There are plenty of free citation sites to consider as well. You don’t have to spend a lot of money in order to have a couple of citations.
How are data aggregators related to citations?
As we already said, data aggregators collect mentions of a business across the web and then provide this information to searching engines. They analyze whether the information is correct and then the algorithm decides where your website is going to be located on the world wide web. By this we mean just what page will it find itself on. It can be the second one or the twenty-second one. It all depends on your citations.
Data aggregators are great for both businesses and customers. Both have the benefit of using them. This is why we always encourage businesses to work on their citations and different types of citations sites. Aggregators collect them, process them, and then proceed the usable information further to search engines.
