Citations are a fantastic way to give your local-based website a nice boost on Google. However, since building these citations can take a lot of your precious time, you may be thinking about hiring a professional company to do the work for you.
If you want help with citations, it’s important that you’re choosing the right company to do the work for you. If you fail to choose the right one, your listings could look blah or you may be dealing with a company that submits to some lousy websites that won’t do you any good.
To make sure you’re making the right choice, here are some questions you should ask any company that is interested in building your citations:
What do you charge?
In the citation world, you don’t want to be too cheap. If the company quotes less than $2 per citation, then this a large red flag. Paying for cheap citations will often mean sloppy work that you’re not going to be happy with, and it could also mean you’re dealing with someone from overseas who is hard to communicate with.
Who picks out the citations?
There are a lot of websites out there that you’d probably love to see your website on. The problem with some citation builders is that they only stick to their list and nothing else. If you have some other websites in mind, ask them if they are able to add them to their list. If they are, that’s great; however if they won’t, then this could mean they are using automated software, which is something you will want to avoid.
Where do you submit?
If you don’t feel like submitting or researching citation websites, ask them for a list of the websites they are going to submit your website to. If the websites on the list are places you have heard of, that’s a good thing; however, if you have only heard of 10 percent of the companies, then it’s probably not even worth paying the company. Just like building quality links, you will want to have citations coming from top-notch companies. SearchEngineLand.com put together some of the best citation websites online.
How do you plan on handling extensive websites?
Some citation websites will make you “claim” your listing before you can submit any information. Since this can be harder than other websites, you’re going to want to know how they are going to handle this situation. A good company won’t be able to do this job for you; however, they will be able to show you a step-by-step guide on how you can verify your listing.
What do I need to do?
Some companies will just submit your information, while others may go above and beyond. When the company is done adding your citations, ask them what you’re going to need to do. Since this company won’t come back and edit the listings for free, they may be able to give you some pointers to keep your citations in good standing.
What about my local market?
There are thousands of citations that focus on a certain niche. For example, HomeAdvisor.com is a large website that focuses on the home improvement industry. Ask the company if they are able to go outside of their “core” citations and help build citations that focus solely on your niche. Today, Google places a large emphasis on links that come from relevant sources.
How many are you going to do?
Like building links, building citations isn’t about the numbers, but rather, it’s about the quality and the traffic that particular website is going to send you. Like the pricing, don’t worry about the numbers. One good citation is going to be better than 20 that you never heard of. Ultimately, you’re going to want to find out how many citations they are going to be able to successfully get you.
When you’re thinking about hiring an outside service to build your citations, be sure to keep these questions in mind. By asking the right questions, you’ll be on the path to having the best citations a local business can have.
