Do you know what the top free citations sites to boost local SEO are? If not, then you are in luck. In this article, we are going to talk about these exact citation sites. Who doesn’t like free stuff, right? Well, with these four sites you will be able to generate a lot of free citations and consequently gain more visibility. The following citation sites require no verification for listing publication so the listing will go live right away. You don’t have to wait to see your business listing go live. Once you hit the ‘Submit’ button you will see your listing on the web. Generating these listings is important for local SEO, and for those looking for rapid results, look no further.
So, without further ado, AZ Citation Services explains which sites are the best when it comes to free citations.
Facebook is one of the best free citations sites
Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes, its name comes from the face book directories often given to American university students. Membership was initially limited to Harvard students, gradually expanding to other North American universities and, since 2006, anyone over 13 years old. As of 2020, Facebook claimed 2.8 billion monthly active users and ranked seventh in global internet usage. It was the most downloaded mobile app of the 2010s.
All of that out of the way, having in mind the sheer number of users, it’s not hard to see why this is the best site for citations out there. Another important thing to note is that Facebook is free. Aside from the ads that you will have to pay for, everything else is free. Another great thing about this site is the fact that it is considered an overall authoritative website. So, you can make great use of the algorithm laid out by Facebook.
Yelp
Yelp was founded in 2004 by former PayPal employees Russel Simmons and Jeremy Stoppelman. It grew in usage and raised several rounds of funding in the following years. By 2010, it had $30 million in revenue, and the website had published about 4.5 million crowd-sourced reviews. From 2009 to 2012, Yelp expanded throughout Europe and Asia. In 2009, it entered unsuccessful negotiations to be acquired by Google. Yelp became a public company via an initial public offering in March 2012 and became profitable for the first time two years later.
As of December 31, 2020, approximately 206.3 million reviews were available on its business listing pages. In 2020, the company had 43 million unique visitors to its desktop webpages and 52 million unique visitors to its mobile sites. Over 50% of the company’s audience has an annual household income of more than $100,000.
So, it’s really a highly lucrative market for you. The fact that it is crowd-sourced means that you will be able to have a word-of-mouth simulation practically. Yelp is certainly among the most popular citation sites among local businesses. And that gives another layer of credibility to your business.
Foursquare
Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai founded the company in late 2008 and launched it in 2009. The company rose to prominence with the launch of its namesake local search-and-discovery mobile app, now known as Foursquare City Guide, which popularized the concept of real-time location-sharing and checking-in. Alongside the changes to the consumer apps, the company began creating products that leverage the location data collected via billions of check-ins. From 2014 to 2016 the company rolled out a series of enterprise offerings, including Pinpoint by Foursquare and Foursquare Attribution.
The basic principle here is just like with Yelp. After someone uses your services they can leave a review which then adds to your ranking score. The more people with positive reviews, the more traffic is driven your way. Consequently, your ranking will be higher as well.
Houzz is the among best free citations sites when it comes to home improvement
Houzz co-founders Adi Tatarko and Alon Cohen launched the site in February 2009 as a result of their own remodeling project. In addition to finding it difficult to communicate their vision for their home, the founders found it difficult to find the right professionals for their project.
What started as a side project to help with Tatarko and Cohen’s own home remodel soon spread by word-of-mouth and they began to receive emails from homeowners and home professionals outside the San Francisco Bay Area asking them to open more categories on Houzz and expand to other areas. Houzz became a company in the fall of 2010. In November 2010, Houzz released an app for the iPad. The Android version of the app was released in December 2012.
In July 2013, Houzz introduced the Real Cost Finder, an interactive tool that helps users plan home renovations and total costs. The tool is based on data collected from the Houzz community. Houzz offers affordable mass-market furniture along with luxurious options for those not having budget cuts. In February 2014, Houzz launched Site Designer, a free website building and publishing tool for home professionals. Websites are connected to a pro’s Houzz profile, which allows them to easily pull in their images, reviews, and other information from their existing profiles. Now, this is a complete game-changer for your business! With this, you will be able to do so much to improve your ranking. That is if your business is home improvement.
To conclude
So, the last thing that remains is to track and measure the value of citations. Once you figured everything out, that is really the only thing left to do. Of course, you should always strive to improve your local SEO with different strategies. However, for the most part, you have done a great job. Pat yourself on the back! Before we leave you to your efforts in acquiring reviews on these free citations sites, we will give an overview of the domain authority and the business category for each of these sites:
- Facebook: Domain authority – 95; Business category – all
- Yelp: Domain authority – 94; Business category – all
- Foursquare: Domain authority – 93; Business category – all
- Houzz: Domain authority – 90; Business category – home improvement
Of course, we can’t forget Google My Business as an excellent example of free citations sites. But, getting them here can be a bit harder than on the aforementioned ones. So, good luck!
