Citations are to local search ranks as links are to organic search ranks. ABSOLUTELY 100% PRICELESS!
Citations are references to your business name and address on other domains’ web pages. Even when there is no static link to your domain, the reference is enormously valuable.
A great example of a citation might be a member’s reference on your city’s Chamber of Commerce domain. A local Chamber of Commerce, a local business association, or even regional archives that support your city, anywhere your business information can be found. Even if they are not linking to your website at all, these citations can have an enormous impact on your local search listing.
Citations are a key component of the ranking algorithms of the major search engines, particularly for local search information. Businesses with a greater number of citations will rank higher than businesses with fewer citations. Additionally, businesses with more of the ‘local authority’ representation in their citation references stand a better change of listing higher in local search.
Donating and sponsoring local charities and events (YMCA, youth shelters, or a music festival) all improve citation diversity and also validate that a business is part of a community. It’s hard for someone to fake membership in a chamber of commerce or a city or county business index, or to be written about in a local online newspaper or popular blog. Citations (and links) from these kinds of websites can dramatically improve your Local search engine rankings.
Citations from well-established and well-indexed portals (like Superpages.com for example) also help increase the degree of certainty the search engines have about your business’s contact information and categorization.
