If I found you in a roomful of attorneys, I’d surmise you were an attorney. If you and a team of contractors were remodeling my kitchen, I’d suspect you were a construction worker. Likewise with Google. When it finds you listed under “attorneys” on a directory site like Yelp or Yellowone with other law firms, it concludes you are also an attorney. This helps you be found online.

The technical term for this is “co-citation.” A citation is simply when your business name, address and phone number appear on a website other than your own. A co-citation is when it appears with other businesses like yours:

The more Google and the other search engines know about your business, the more likely you are to appear when someone searches for the products or services you provide. Citations and co-citations provide additional information that helps improve your online visibility.

How to Obtain Citations and Co-Citations

There are hundreds local directories, search engines and review sites you should be listed on—sites like: Google, Yahoo!, Bing, Yelp, Superpages, MapQuest, Citysearch, Foursquare, Yellowpages.com, Yellowbook, and more. The more of these your business is listed on, the better your chances of being found online.

Here are three ways to get listed:

1. Do it Yourself

You can manually obtain citations by going to each directory site and “claiming” your listing. Although there are hundreds of such sites, I’d start with the top 19.

Be prepared to spend time doing so, as each site has its own verification process you must follow to prove you are the actual business owner.

2. Submit Your Listing to the Major Data Providers

These directory site don’t create their own listings; they buy the data from the main data aggregators: Acxiom, Localeze, Infogroup and Factual. The data they provide fuels all the major search engines and directories across the web.

If your business isn’t listed with these providers, you won’t rank well in Google or the other search engines. If your business information is wrong, the directories may use the providers’ data instead of what’s in their own database. Neither scenario is good for your business.

The good news is that you can submit your business listing to most of these—for a fee, of course:

1. Infogroup: $59 per year
2. Localeze: $300 per year
3. Acxiom: $50 per year
4. Factual: Does not accept submissions from individual businesses, only from List Management firms (more about that below)

3. Use a List Management Service

A list management company will charge you less than the $400+ you’d pay each data provider individually. That’s because they buy listings at a wholesale rate directly from the data companies and pass the savings to you. (You’ll also get submitted to Factual, which you can’t do on your own.)

What’s more, these companies often include more than data submission—like adding content and images to your Google+ and Facebook business Page.

Get Listed to Get Found

Online listing are a critical piece of the online search puzzle. Local directory sites get over 150 million unique visitors each month and reach 90 percent of online consumers. Whether you choose to do it yourself, pay each data provider, or use a list management service, you need to get listed to get found online.

Our list management service gets you listed on on hundreds of highly-trafficked local directories, search engines, review sites, Internet Yellow Pages and mobile platforms. Contact us today!

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