Using Citations to Validate Your Business

  URL citations and the structure of data are essential to your online presence. So, how do you make sure that your business has optimal versions of each?


So does your
business really exist online? My name is Daniel Zayets-Volshin, and today we’re going to talk about URL citations and the structure of data. So what are citations? Citations are basically links with local search intent. They tell Google or any other search engine that you are actually the business that you say you are. And the search engine uses those links to confirm the address, hours, phone number, potentially the website or other information that might be related to the business.

Consistent Citations

It is very important that information is pretty much identical from citation source to citation source. Directories like Yelp, Citysearch, Yahoo, all the examples of such citation sources. But it is also important to mark the information on your site, because the search engine will use that information to correlate directly to those citation sources. The information on your site needs to be as close to identical as possible to how it’s provided to all the citations. Over the past few years, there has been a number of services that offer automatic submission and editing of citation sources. Though I cannot dispute the benefits of editing, I would say that it’s much better to do citations manually. Essentially when you’re doing a citation by yourself, you know all the local and industry-specific sources, where that citation can be achieved from. For example, in Boston we have a directory right on Newbury Street.

Location-Specific Directories

That directory is so specific that it would never be listed in one of those automatic citation sources. All those citation sources might not know your industry specific directories either. You know them, this is your industry. Getting the recognition from such organizations with the search intent such as location, link and phone number is completely available. Local and industry-specific citations links are one of the most important factors in the success of local optimization. Having information consistently the same from all the citation sources as well as your website is absolutely vital.

About Daniel Zayets-Volshin

In 2001, Daniel began his career in professional online marketing and web design as an affiliate marketer with an emphasis on display advertising. After this experience, he spent numerous years working as an affiliate manager, SEO and Pay Per Click (PPC) expert preceding his position as a marketing director at a major public records company. All while, successfully launching over 30 campaigns for public records search engines, which included eVerify, CiminalPages, CourtRecords, and InteliGator. These search engines had a combined daily traffic volume exceeding 250,000 unique visitors daily.

Towards the end of first decade of the 21st century, he founded IntermediaWebworks which eventually evolved intowww.WebsiteBoston.com and www.SEOBoston.org – two websites that offer full service web development and Search Engine Optimization for businesses in the Boston area. Currently both websites are running strong and are the top ranked 5 star rated businesses in Google for multiple relevant keywords within their respective categories.

Daniel currently resides in a Boston area with his wife and 2 sons. His family keeps his feet planted in reality and brings him his most joys in life. While his house is asleep, Daniel is always searching know how to educate himself in technology and new result driven methodology in order to take his performance and the performance of his team to the next level. His keys beliefs to success are constant self-education, innovation and automation.