It doesn’t take much experience to learn that handling SEO is a complicated matter. Far more complex than many people think. It’s common knowledge that everyone can become an SEO expert. But not everyone realizes how time-consuming it can be to learn all the strategies and everything else that follows. There are different aspects that you need to tackle, and various areas that you need to incorporate. Therefore, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that most people skip over niche citations altogether. As you will soon learn, this is a big mistake, as niche citations can be useful for your SEO and your online presence in general. If you’re wondering what are niche citations, and why are they so important for SEO, stick around. That’s precisely what we as citation professionals are here to help you find out.
What are niche citations?
To fully understand what are niche citations we first need to elaborate on what are citations in general. To put it simply, a website citation is when someone mentions information that regards specifically to your business. Any online mention of the phone number, name, or address counts as a citation. The more citations you have, the more your business is talked about. Surely you understand why it’s important to be talked about as much as possible. Therefore, citations are a good estimate of how popular your business is and how good of an online presence you have. Furthermore, Google’s SEO pays close attention to citations as it is a good recommendation of what business should come up first in the search results. Especially when it comes to local SEO and niche businesses.
In fewer words
Your industry-specific citations are always built on specialized platforms. Having an Eater or Grubhub profile can be seen as a niche citation if you running a restaurant. It’s important to have citations in specific niches to help search engines identify your business. In our blog (AZ Citations blog) we often talk about the importance of citations (any kind of them). That’s why we recommend that as the perfect place to keep researching this topic after you are done reading this text.
The importance
Obviously, we need to talk a lot more about the importance of niche citations. We will talk about that more later in the text as well as other important things like citation building or even citation cleanup. All of those topics are important. But, let’s start with the basics. Like why are they important for local businesses? Citations are important for local businesses since they send out signals that tell search engines they can trust your business. SEO experts have long accepted citations as a key factor in local ranking. In a survey of local SEO experts conducted by Moz in 2020, “consistency of citations” came in fifth place.
Local citations
Since we are talking about basics still we need to talk about local citations as well since they are very important for you. Your business that is. Any online mention of your company’s name, address, or even phone number constitutes a local citation in this context. The belief of many SEOs is that they play a significant role in local search engine optimization (SEO). Citation can be found in a wide variety of places, including business directories and social media platforms. Later in the text, we will be talking about who can help you with your citations and that will also cover local (and global) ones. Now, let’s get back to our main topic here.
Niche websites
Of course, it stands to reason that not all citations carry the same weight. A citation from a random person will be beneficial, but not as much as many people think. On the other hand, getting a citation from a well-trusted website that is an expert in the industry where you are doing business is worth substantially more. These citations are known as niche citations, as they come from niche websites. Remember this, as people often confuse local citations with niche citations. The more reputable and well-situated the website is, the more value people and Google SEO are going to put in it. So you can trust us when we tell you that a single good niche citation can be worth much more than hundreds of regular ones.
The reason why people usually don’t bother with them
So, with this in mind, why do niche citations often fly under the radar for many SEO managers? Well, there are a couple of reasons. Some of the less experienced managers are simply not aware of how important niche citations are. We can forgive them. They will learn over time and start using them. Others, on the other hand, avoid looking for citations as you often have to jump through hoops in order to get a decent one. Being lazy on the other hand is not something we can forgive. That’s why you need to choose carefully when choosing citation and SEO experts. But, we will talk a little bit later about that one.
The reason why YOU shouldn’t overlook them
It’s impossible to say for sure how much of an impact a niche site listing will have on your local search rankings, but it will surely help. Here you can see the primary advantages of obtaining niche citations:
- Rather than being buried at the bottom of Google’s search results for uncommitted customers like tire kickers, they tend to do well for targeted keywords.
- Those locations are more highly probable to be in places where you may get feedback.
- If they are paid directories, they are more likely to offer a “follow” link (i.e. a link that Google “counts”). If those sites are related to your field and aren’t your only source of backlinks, you won’t be penalized by Google.)
- It’s more likely they’ll generate additional leads if they’re geared toward specific demographics.
Difficulty with finding good websites
Now that you’ve learned what are niche citations, let’s say that you want to find a website that can help you get them. So, where are you supposed to find such websites? Well, this is usually the first issue SEO managers have to deal with. Well, one of the first issues. You can find out in our blog all of the worries SEO experts have. While there are websites that can help you out with niche citations, most decent websites you simply need to be aware of. This requires an in-depth knowledge of the industry that you are in. Furthermore, you need to have a decent amount of experience. Especially when it comes to knowing how to present your company properly online. By the time these two come to fruition, most SEO managers drift away from niche citations as they regard other SEO tactics as more lucrative.
Tips on presenting your company properly online
Since we mentioned this one earlier in the text (right here above) we have a few useful tips for you that will at least point you in the right direction. You can continue your research on this topic later, of course, this is just something to keep in mind.
- first, you need to talk about your company and describe it well
- define the services you are offering
- try to describe your crew/employees and present them to your potential customers
- show people your past projects and the stuff you are proud of
- show the reviews and testimonials
Paid niche listings
The other roadblock is that some websites require you to pay them if you want to get citations. Some of the more popular ones will require payment just to get a review, let alone a citation. Others like Facebook, Yelp, TripAdvisor, and the rest are free for all businesses. So, it stands to reason that upcoming businesses are reluctant towards paying. Especially if they are not sure of how useful these citations are going to be.
Why having niche citations is essential
To give you an even better idea of what are niche citations and why they matter, we are going to cover the main benefits of implementing them. All of those will be in the links we left here for you. They, of course, cannot be the sole way in which you engage your online audience. But, they can be a useful side tool that will help you boost your online presence and get a better SEO rating.
Boosting online presence
The most common way in which people find a business is through Google. They either straight outlook for a service or product. Or, they read a blog post that leads them to a service. In either case, they will compare whatever business is available to serve them, as doing so is easier than ever. Keep this in mind, you can easily make out where having a decent niche citation will come in helpful. Furthermore, niche citations can be tremendously helpful in finding leads. Know that most companies are interested in co-promotion and even cooperation. And one of the top ways in which they find potential partners is through niche citations.
Do you need some help?
As we already said working to maintain your citations, working on citation building, focusing on your niche citations, and doing all the popular SEO strategies at the same time can be impossible. Since you have a website and business to run besides all that. Luckily we can help you. Hiring professionals is always a smart way to approach this problem.
Niche citations play an important role in the overall SEO process for a wide variety of businesses today. With the right agency, everything from optimizing your website for Apple Maps to putting your business in local directories can be done. As a result, they’ve amassed a wealth of experience, expertise, and resources to assist local businesses in keeping up with the latest changes to their citations and SEO strategies. There is no limit to the services these experts can provide when it comes to local search. They can draw on their citation-building expertise to assess your situation, determine what steps need to be taken, and then carry out those steps quickly and precisely.
A higher degree of reliability
Every business struggles with building reliability. As an upstart, you need to convince your customers that your products and/or services are well worth the money. And, you need to give them a good enough reason to choose to work with you instead of working with your competitors. Once you start tackling these issues you will soon learn how complicated and arduous they can be. So, it stands to reason that you should use every tool available to quickly build up your company’s reliability. Luckily, this is precisely where niche citations provide the most help. A citation from a reputable website gives your business a substantial boost in reliability. To give you a comparison, you would otherwise have to go through tons of different customer reviews, and months of diligent customer service in order to get the same result. So, now that you know what are niche citations when weighing out the pros and cons of tackling them, know that they can be a great bang for your buck.
