If you are a brick-and-mortar business, the importance of local SEO cannot be overstated. More than 20 percent of Google searches are for a local business, according to Erin Everhart of Search Engine Land, and that figure doubles with searches on mobile devices. Looking at the figure below (a heat map constructed based on visitor eye-tracking data compiled by Mirametrix), it’s clear that having a high-ranked Google Places listing is essential for driving business to your storefront.

There are numerous variables that make up Google’s local ranking algorithm, but today we’d like to focus on just one of those factors – citations, i.e. online “references” to your business. We’ll start by briefly discussing what local search citations are, why they are important, and then will finish off with a review of two tools that significantly simply the process of getting them for your business.

What are local search citations, and why are they important?

It helps to think of citations as “mentions” of your business name and address online. If your business is listed in a directory like Yelp, Urbanspoon, or TripAdvisor, for example, that’s a citation. If the local chamber of commerce maintains a list of member businesses and you are on that list, that’s also a citation, as is any reference to your business in a newspaper article. In SEO parlance, citations are to local SEO what inbound links are to more traditional SEO. The more consistent references there are on the Internet to your business, the more confident Google and other search engines can be that your business actually exists, and that the information they provide to searchers is accurate. In David Mihm’s annual review of the most important local search ranking factors, citations came in at number four!

So, where can I get these citations for my business?

Glad you asked! To get started, head over to GetListed.org, enter your business name and zip code in the fields provided, and click the blue Check My Listings button. Within a minute (usually less, depending on the speed of your connection), you should see a list of popular citation directories and information on whether your business has an owner-verified listing in each one.

There is no reason for you to not have a 100 percent completion score, so use the links provided to create and/or verify a profile for your business in each of the listed directories. Note that it can take a while for search engine spiders to register any changes you make, so if you create a profile and GetListed.org is still showing that you haven’t done so, don’t freak out!

The next tool – Local Citation Finder – comes from the awesome folks at Whitespark, an SEO and web development agency in Edmonton, Canada, and is the Swiss army knife of business owners who are serious about building up their citation volume.  Just enter basic demographic information about where your business is located (i.e. country, state, and city) and what product or service-related keyword phrase you’d like to rank for and LCF will scavenge the Internet for a list of the most common directories where businesses which are currently ranking for the keyword that you entered are listed.

In terms of pricing, there are several plans available, depending on your needs. The free version, for example, caps the number of searches at 3 per day, and limits the number of citations that it displays per each search. If you are a small business owner, the $20/month plan will likely prove more useful – you get 20 searches per day, and the app will show a complete list of the citations that it finds.

Finally, be sure to take a look at this article from Search Engine Land’s Myles Anderson, which contains a list of the top 50 search citation sources for UK and U.S. businesses. Accompanying each listing is information on whether the directory is free or paid, and what types of businesses and venues it’s most useful for.

Before you go…

I’d like to wrap this up with a friendly reminder that although citation volume is important, it’s not the holy grail of acquiring a top ranking in Google Places listing. Don’t spend all of your time submitting your business to local directories at the cost of ignoring things like making sure that your business address is listed on your website in a search engine spider-friendly format (i.e. text) and acquiring inbound links from authoritative domains. Local SEO is a discipline that cannot be learned overnight or for the cost of $20 per month, so treat it as such.

Have you tried using Local Citation Finder and/or GetListed.org? Did you find the information that these apps provided useful? We’d love to hear about your experience acquiring citations for your business in the comments.