Did you know that
having consistent and correct citations is mandatory for any successful paket
murah pulau tidung SEO Campaign? If you've read the 2013 Moz Paket murah pulau
tidung Ranking Factors survey or you've been in the paket murah pulau tidung
SEO game for a while, it's no secret how important citations are to ranking paket
murah pulau tidungly in Google. In fact, citations and external location
signals are the 3rd most important ranking factor according to the Moz paket
murah pulau tidung search ranking factors survey. This is why it's
essential that you have your correct NAP listed across the major citation
sources.
So what is the NAP
format? NAP stands for Business Name, Address, and Phone Number. Having this information listed on another
website such as Yelp, Citysearch, or Yellowpages acts like a positive vote for
your paket murah pulau tidung listings. While many people know they need to
build citations to help increase their paket murah pulau tidung rankings,
surprisingly many people overlook having duplicate listings and incorrect
listings.
Some people think they
only need to update their Google My Business listing which is incorrect. In
fact, according to David Mihm from Moz "If all you're doing is updating
your Google+ Paket murah pulau tidung Page, you're going to continue to see
problems because "new" erroneous data will constantly feed into
Google from all of its other sources." This has been known to create
bigger problems down the road. So what is the downside if you have inconsistent
citations, duplicate citations, or citations that are just plain wrong?
In a nutshell you're
missing out on getting credit for that citation, it's hurting your paket
murah pulau tidung rankings in Google, and its potentially creating longer term issues when the
incorrect data is scraped. Unfortunately while there are some resources you can
use to simplify this process, it's not as easy as waving a magic wand or
blinking while wearing your Google Glass.
Let's Start With The Basics: What is an Incorrect NAP?
So what is an
incorrect NAP? The long and the short of it is that Google and other search
engines want to give you credit for having your business name, address, and
phone number listed on other reputable websites. It acts as a vote of
confidence for you similar to a link in organic SEO.
You should make sure
that your Google My Business Listing has your correct NAP format the way you
want it displayed across the web. If any of this information is not the same as
it is listed in Google My Business then you may not be getting credit for it.
Additionally if you have a duplicate listing it could be hurting you as well.
Just because you didn't create or publish the incorrect information doesn't
mean it's not polluting the paket murah pulau tidung ecosystem. There are
plenty of ways this can happen as I discuss a little later in this article. But
first, let's take a look of some good and bad examples of correct and incorrect
NAP.
How Exact Do These Citations Need to Be?
As you can see from
the examples above, I was very clear with the items I changed from the correct
example. Although Google has gotten good at detecting minor differences, you
should always aim to be the least imperfect. The whole reason we are fixing
these in the first place is to make it easier for Google to associate the
proper listings together for your business. Minor differences such as Street
and St. should not be an issue. However, incorrect, duplicate, or false
information is a big no no.
The long and the short
of it is that the Business Name, Address, and Phone Number you want to use
should be 100% correct in your Google My Business Dashboard (formerly Google
Places, Plus Paket murah pulau tidung, etc.). From here, you can copy this
exact format on every source you wish to get a citation from.
Overall, there are
three types of citations we're trying to fix during this process. These
include:
- Duplicates -Duplicate listings on the same directory
- Mismatches - Listings for your business that have the wrong
Business Name, Physical Address, or Phone Number (or just the 800 number
and no paket murah pulau tidung number). This can get especially
complicated for doctors and lawyers, as I will discuss later in this
article.
- Incomplete
Citations - It's important that you fill
out the profiles to completion once you've claimed them. This includes
adding photo and filling out every field there is an option for.
How Does This Happen & What Causes
These?
Just because you don't
remember creating an incorrect listing doesn't mean there is no bad data in the
paket murah pulau tidung ecosystem. In fact, here are just some of the common
reasons you have incorrect NAP across the web:
- Your business moved physical
locations
- You used tracking phone numbers
at one point
- You hired an SEO to create
citations or get listed on online directories
- The data aggregators have
incorrect information
- You inherited a dirty phone
number
- You changed your paket murah
pulau tidung phone number
- You used tracking phone numbers
- You used an 800 number and not
a paket murah pulau tidung number
- You have different trade name
or business name variations
- Your listing was incorrectly
submitted and scraped to other sites
- Someone in your organization
setup the listings without knowledge of NAP consistency (this is pretty
common)
While there is a major
possible ranking benefit of cleaning up this data, there is another reason it
should be on your radar too. If you're a fan of brand consistency like me, then
you want to be the least imperfect and ensure all information about your
company is accurate across all mediums you control.
The example below
shows just how confusing this data can be and the issues that can be caused by
incorrect citations on one of these sites. (Graphic from David Mihm's Paket murah pulau tidung Search Ecosystem)
Before We Start: Here are Some Important
Things to Know
- If you're paralyzed just
thinking about the hundreds you need to fix, don't sweat it. While a good
long term-goal would be to clean up a lot of the data, the reality is that your first focus should
be on the top citations for
your industry and city. Also
check out Phil Rozek's list here and the Top 50 Citation Sources that Whitespark
mentions on this page.
Focus your efforts on the primary citation sources for your niche and
area. Once these are fixed up you can move on. Just spend 15 minutes
a day cleaning this up.
- Keep good records using this
spreadsheet. You will need to follow up with these directories again and
again in some cases. Don't worry, I made a spreadsheet below that you can
use for this.
- Make sure to update the old
incorrect citation instead of just adding new ones!
- This work can be tedious, but
accuracy is essential. Don't try to use shortcuts.
- Read Moz's case study from David Mihm regarding cleaning up citations
Let's Start By Identifying Possible NAP
Variations & Recording Them In the Spreadsheet
The first step in the
citation cleanup process is to find out exactly what information is actually
out there about your business. I put together an awesome spreadsheet you can use
here. The first tab has a place to post the duplicate information. I
like to color code it for simplicity as you can see in the example below:
In the example above,
I have the correct business information at the top of the spreadsheet in green
for easy reference and the incorrect variations in red. You will want to record
every variation you find here to make our job a little bit easier moving
forward. But how do you find the incorrect variations for your client or
business?
I
prefer to start at the source by talking to the business owners and marketing
managers. After you have collected their proper NAP info, ask these questions
to see if you can get any details:
- Have you ever moved physical
locations?
- Is this the address you have
listed on your legal business paperwork with the State and Federal
government?
- Have you ever used tracking
phone numbers?
- Have you ever hired an SEO
company or someone to manage your online presence. Do you have a list of
logins or websites they submitted you to?
- Do you use any lead generation
services? (Sometimes they use tracking phone numbers)
- Does your business go by any
trade or fictions business names?
Typically asking these
simple questions up front can save a lot of time in the long run. If you don't
get any good info from them or they just don't know there are several ways you
can look for this information online first to make your life easier.
After
You Have Asked the Questions, It's Time to Do Your Own Investigative Work
While the questions
above are helpful, it's important to dive a little deeper and see what you can
find. These are the steps I typically take:
- Check
the secretary of state's filing for the business. Most have an online search platform where you can see
who registered the business. If it has a different Name, Mailing Address,
or Phone number go ahead and add these to the spreadsheet. We will want to
check these out when searching for duplicates. (BONUS TIP: Search their filed business documents online and see
if they had previously filed for a fictitious business name or DBA.)
- Review
the company BBB listing. Check
out Phil Rozek's article on his BBB Hack for finding
possible conflicting information. The long and the short of it
is that the BBB.org business listings show additional reported phone
numbers, business names, and addresses as shown in the example below from
his website.
- Check
Google Map Maker. By viewing the classic Google Map Maker,
you can see the edit history of a business. This will tell you if a phone
number or business name has been changed. To get this data simply pull up
the Classic Map Maker, search for a business and then select the history
tab. Once you're on the history click "Show All Changes" in the
upper right corner of the listing as shown below:
Once you have clicked on this, it will show the entire edit history. Look
for edits to the NAP over the time the listing has been live. In the
example below, you can see how the business name was actually changed at
one point. This is the business name I will want to record in my
spreadsheet (the old one).
Once you feel like you
have a good handle on this, you can start by moving on and searching for these
culprits hiding across the web. Now it's time to get fixing!
Here is a Quick Way to See What NAP Variations
Google Already Associates with Your Business
If your business is recognized by Google and has reviews on other websites the
new Google My Business dashboard tries to condense that information in one
place. It provides examples of listings it has associated with your listing
already. I recommend checking this to see what differences it recognizes for
your business and mainly used for reference. If Google detects an inaccurate
citation, don't assume that it will find others. Remember, always aim to be the
least imperfect.
To
access this simply follow the steps below:
- Login to your dashboard at www.google.com/mybusiness
- Open up one of your locations
and scroll down to the reviews section.
- Click the blue "Manage
Reviews" button
- Then scroll down and check
under the "Reviews from around the web" heading and see what
pops up.
- You should see the listings
here of other detected reviews.
- You can click the "View
full review on...." link and view the full review there.
- Check the NAP for that citation
and see how or if it varies from your correct NAP. Record the differences
as we can use them later in this guide.
Start With the Data Aggregators Before Your
Manual Efforts
Tools are great and
help make tedious jobs like this easier. While there are some tools I advocate
for this job, the reality is that most of them don't cover the niche specific
directories and others you may be listed on. That being said there are some great
tools you can use to help save time and money and are recommended in my overall
procedure below.
- Start
with Moz Paket murah pulau tidung.
Moz Paket murah pulau tidung provides a Check My Listing score
which will scan your listings just by entering your Business Name and Zip
Code. This will give you a score that includes the citations that are
Complete, Incomplete, Inconsistent, and Duplicates from the Top 15
citation sources and data aggregators. If you're not starting here, you
might be shooting yourself in the foot. Signing up for this service which
is $50 a year will help fix this data at some of the sources that
distribute their data to many other providers across the web. You can also
use this service to find other possible NAP variants.
- Consider additional tools to
see if they will help you. My manual methods are below but if you want to
pull other data, you can also check out Brightpaket murah pulau tidung's Paket murah
pulau tidung SEO Checkup product which will show you NAP variants and the
accuracy of major listings. You can also check out Whitespark's
citation finder to start with a list of sites it detects you being listed
on. They both offer great citation finding resources which will make this
a bit easier. Also, Yext just recently introduced a product for fixing
duplicates. While I have not had a chance to review this yet I believe
it's only for their network and it is a paid service.
- Once you're ready, it's time to
move on to the manual side of NAP Cleanup using my method below.
The Manual Cleanup Process
When dealing with
citation cleanup, efficiency and accuracy is the name of the game. I have developed a process that I find works
best for me when it comes to being productive in fixing citations and removing
duplicates. This is what I'm going to explain below in more details, but
basically it boils down to four steps.
On the second tab of this spreadsheet that I created
for you, you will see the sheet has several columns. They are
identified and explained below:
|
Website
|
Put the domain of
the citation source. This will help you sort it later for easy tracking.
|
|
Business Name
|
Copy and paste the
business name from the citation you want to keep here. If the one you want to
keep is wrong, paste it here anyhow. We will correct it later.
|
|
Address
|
Copy and paste the
address including suite # from the citation you want to keep here. If the one
you want to keep is wrong paste it here anyhow. We will correct it later.
|
|
City State Zip
|
Copy and paste the
City, State, and Zip Code from the listing here.
|
|
Phone
|
Copy and paste the
Phone Number from the listing here.
|
|
Links To
|
Put the URL that the
citation is linking to if applicable.
|
|
Issues
|
Put the main issue
here. Mention all issues if possible. If the citation is a Duplicate and has
an incorrect name I would put "Duplicate | Incorrect Business Name"
|
|
URL Of Live Listing
|
Copy and paste the
URL of the citation source so we can refer to it later if needed.
|
|
Duplicate 1
|
Copy and paste the
URL of any duplicates here
|
|
Duplicate 2
|
Copy and paste any
duplicates here
|
|
Status
|
I added a status
column to check and update the status. Sometimes when you contact them they
may not be prompt.
|
|
|
|
|
Green
|
If you highlight the
row in this color, you have confirmed there are no issues with this citation
and no duplicates.
|
|
Yellow
|
There is an issue
with this listing like the company name is missing "The" in front
of the name or the suite number is not perfect. Basically this is for minor
secondary issues that don't need fixing, but you could fix them if you wanted
to.
|
|
Red
|
If there is a major
issue with the NAP such as wrong Name, Address, Phone Number or a Duplicate
you can mark it as red. This will help us to prioritize our work later.
|
Below are two screenshots of how the spreadsheet looks when you
pull it up.
Once you start finding
the citations, you will want to color-code each row after evaluating the
citation. This will help you prioritize your work later once your're ready to
start fixing these up.
The Process
- Audit
Your Citations -
Using my spreadsheet and the methods listed below you can start by
auditing every citation source you find for your business.
- Record
the Data - Record the NAP information in the spreadsheet provided
and don't be shy with the details. After you have identified a problem
make sure to color code the row. Red is a very important fix, Yellow is
something you can fix but can wait, and Green is good meaning there are no
problems and no duplicates.
- Outreach
& Fix - Once you have a list of
your action items, you can sort the list by RED or priority items. You can
then outreach to these sites and record it in the notes with the date.
- Follow
Up, Record, & Repeat - You
can't just send an email or contact form and call it good. You have to
follow up. Don't change the color of the row until the live listings are
fixed. This will allow you to check and re-check until these issues are
cleaned up. The reality is that some of these listings will require
multiple contacts to get fixed (just like link removals).
Finding Your Incorrect Citations
Finding these citation
sources can be a difficult task. However, if you already have a list of primary
citations you want to tackle you're in a good spot. Remember that focusing your
efforts on the primary sources will provide the most ROI.
Remember that when
you're searching for citations using these methods you will want to search for
each of the ones you identified to ensure complete accuracy. In other words,
don't just search a directory by the proper business name or phone number. Also,
search it with the WRONG information you identified to see if any wrong sources come
up.
Method 1: Search
Specific Directories & Websites
If you only have one
business location this task gets a bit easier as there a search string you can
use to narrow down your results. However if you're a multi-location business it
may not work as well (depending on how many locations you have). This search
string is going to use three commands. The first command site: searches only within the website immediately
following the colon. If I just wanted to search Yellowpages.com I could typesite:yellowpages.com. Now putting information after the site
command will help narrow down your search. Let's say that I wanted to search
only YellowPages.com for my exact company name, but only for listings that DO
NOT contain my primary phone number that is associated with my NAP. In this
case I could put in this search:
site:yellowpages.com
"The Reeves Law Group" -714-550-6000
- The site: command tells Google to search only the website (in
this case YellowPages.com)
- The Quoted "The Reeves Law
Group" tells
Google to only return results that include the company name in that exact
phrase order
- The -714-550-6000 tells Google to not include any results that use this
phone number. The minus allows you to exclude information you don't want
to appear in the results.
If you have a list of citation sources you want to check such as the Moz Top 10
by City or Industry, you could then use these search strings, identify
duplicates and problems on the primary sites.
Most reputable
websites also have an internal search function as well. It's important to check
this too as the Google Site: command only searches for indexed citations. It's
possible that the incorrect one may not be indexed yet, but could cause
problems in the future.
Method 2:
Searching Google's Index Citations
While you can search
specific directories for incorrect citations if you already know the websites
you want to check, what if you don't have that list? Another easy way is to
pull the incorrect results direct from Google. To do this we will use the MozBar
and modify our search settings which allow us to scrape 100 results at a time.
Simply follow the example below.
Before
using this method, you need to change your search settings in Google
Start by pulling up Google.com and clicking on the gear icon in the upper right
hand corner of a search page. You will want to navigate to search settings
where you will check the button "Never Show Instant Results" and then
change the Results Per Page slider to 100. This will allow you to search 100
entries as a time. You can see the settings we changed in the picture below:
You will also need the
MozBar for this. If you don't have the extension you can download the Chrome version hereand
the Firefox version here.
Once you have the MozBar installed you will be ready to start scraping these
results!
When the MozBar is on
and you do a search in Google you will now be able to see 100 results and
easily export them by clicking the export button in the top left corner of the
MozBar as shown in the example below. Once you have these results you can copy
and paste them in my trusty spreadsheet for evaluation. Of course if you're
doing a lot of searches I recommend conducting the searches first, combining
the results, and then removing duplicates in Excel. This will save you a ton of
time!
So Which Search Operators Should You Use?
Using the proper
search operators and getting a bit creative will save you a substantial amount
of time. Don't think that you're stuck with the ones I have provided below. Get
creative and think outside of the box based on your situations. Below are some
examples you can use along with an explanation of them. They are sorted by
categories below.
Casey's OCD Pro Tip: Using Google can
produce different results depending on how the data is entered on the actual
citation site. For example it's a good idea to search different Phone number
variations. Some variants include: 111111111111, 111-111-1111, (111)
111-1111
Take note that when
you do a search with quote around the keyword (e.g: "Keyword One"),
it will search for the words in that order exactly as they appear. If you want
to learn more about creative boolean search terms check out this resource.
How
to Find Listings With Incorrect Phone Numbers
What
you should search: 800
Number -Paket murah pulau tidung Number
Example: 800-644-8000
-714-550-6000 This search when preformed in Google is
telling it to search for the main company's 800 number (800-644-8000), but
exclude the paket murah pulau tidung phone number of the main office (which is
why I used the - sign before 714-550-6000). If you have one location that uses
or used an 800 number at some point this will be your primary go to search. If
you have multiple locations though it will likely just return results from the
other locations. You could of course add - to additional offices and
search this way as well.
What
you should search: 800
Number -Paket murah pulau tidung Number +Company Name
Example: 800-644-800
-714-550-6000 +Reeves Law Group At first glance this search operator probably
looks like the one above with the simple addition of +reeves. However take a
closer look and notice how I took out one "0" from the 800 number.
What I am doing here is looking for a possible wrong entry but also making sure
that part of the company name (in this case The Reeves Law Group) is shown in
the string.
How
To Find Incorrect Business Names That Have The Proper Phone
What
you should search: 555-555-555
-"Company Name"
Searching for the office locations phone number and then excluding the
company's name using the -"company name" command will show all
results for that phone number that do not mention the proper company name. This
is an easy way to find variants of the business name across the internet.
Other
Searches You Can Try
What
you should search : "Business
Name"+"Address" With quotes this will search for all
instances of the exact business name and exact address you put in. The more
specific you get the narrower the search results will be.
What
you should search : "Business
Name"+"Zip code" Doing this will give you
another list of options that could include listings without the proper
business phone number.
Finding
Which Citations are Correct
What
you should search (Without quotes): "City Name"+"Zip Code"+"Company
Name"+"Phone Number"
Thankfully, you can also use these tricks to see which citations you have that
are correct. If you're scanning for citations this way make sure you also check
each of these sites for possible duplicates as you could have one correct
listing and one or more bad ones too.
Once you have your
list of sources you can us the Mozbar export option outlined above and sort
through these on the spreadsheet.
Once You Have Them Documented You Can
Prioritize and Outreach
Once all of these are
all properly documented comes the painstaking task of fixing them. Some of
these websites will allow you to claim listings and directly edit them which is
nice. Some you will have to hunt for the contact information and if you can't
find it I recommend checking their WHOIS information to get the data of the
domain owner. Most reputable sites though will have some way of contacting
them.
Usually when you
encounter duplicate listings, you will have to contact the website to get them
removed. Be patient. Remember that in most of these cases you're not paying to
be listed on their website so their response can take some time. Be sure to
document your contact dates in the spreadsheet as well so you can easily follow
up.
Here are a few tips
for the outreach methods:
- Make sure all email contacts
come from an email address on your websites domain such as
Webmaster@YourDomain.com. This may help the back and forth verification
process where possible.
- Some listings will require you
to claim and verify them and may call the business with an automated
system. Be prepared to take a few calls.
- Always be very clear with your
request but also be concise. They don't typically spend a lot of time on
these requests so making it as easy as possible with the links is
recommended.
- Make sure to read the websites
FAQ's for removing duplicates or updating listings. It will save you a lot
of time and they may already have a process in place for this.
- If you can't find the procedure
try the contact form on the website first, then email if you don't
hear back in a reasonable amount of time.
Contacting Websites to
Fix Listings via Email
Below is a very quick and easy sample outreach email I use for some of these
contacts. This example can be used if you have two listings at
YellowPages.com that are on the following URLs:
1) http://www.YellowPages.com/Listing1
2) http://www.YellowPages.com/Listing2
Sample Contact Email:
Hello,
I
recently discovered that your website has two listings for my business,
"Business Name" located at "Address". I was hoping you
could help me delete the duplicate listing.
The
correct listing is: 1) http://www.YellowPages.com/Listing1
The
listing I need deleted is: 2) http://www.YellowPages.com/Listing2
Could
you please notify me once you have had the chance to fix this?
Thanks!
- Business Owner
How
This Helps
By sending out clear and concise emails you may eliminate the back and forth
emails and get them done quicker. Over time you may notice that some of these
websites don't reply. The reality is that some of them won't reply or will
charge a fee to be fixed. You can make the decision on a case by case basis
whether these are important enough to worry about.
Conclusion
I hope you found this
guide useful and hope it's something tactical that you can put to use right
away. Using this method you will be off to a good start at fixing up your
citations. Like everything else in paket murah pulau tidung search this will
take time to cleanup and time to process. Let Google find and index these
naturally over time and watch your paket murah pulau tidung rankings soar. If
you have any other tips for citation cleanup please post them in the comments
below. Additionally if you have any specific questions please feel free to
contact me directly anytime. Just take it one step at a time and you'll be done
in no time!
