If you’re looking into search engine optimization (SEO), you may come across something called local search citations – referred to simply as citations for short. In their most basic form, citations are mentions of your company’s name, address, and phone number on the internet. However, the reality is that citations are much more complex when you get into the nitty-gritty of them. Despite their complexity, these local search citations can do amazing things for your business.
If you want to learn more about how local search engines can generate more leads and exposure for your local RV park business, keep reading. We provide an in-depth, comprehensive overview of this excellent SEO tool below.
How Does Google Work?
To understand the importance of local search citations, it’s important to do a quick refresher on how Google really works. Let’s say you just opened your RV park. You have a brand-new website and social media platforms, but despite it all, you’re still not getting the website traffic you know you could be. Before your website and social media platforms can start showing up in Google search results, Google first has to crawl and index those new pages. In layman’s terms, this is the process of finding new and/or updated web pages for the search engine behemoth to index – aka keep in their database.
So let’s return to your new RV park company and new website. When you create your website, Google will send “spiders” out to crawl the web for new pages (like yours) to index. This process can take anywhere between three days up to four weeks, depending on the situation. Google remains pretty tight-lipped about exactly how long this process takes, which is why many SEO companies will go ahead and submit their new sitemap to places like Google Search Console, which can speed up the indexing process.
Once your website is indexed, any relevant pages or keywords you created will appear in Google search results for related terms. Let’s say, for example, you’re looking for a local mechanic that works on European cars. The search results you receive will have corresponding pages, links, or keywords related to your search query.
Why is This Refresher Important?
Knowing how Google works is critical to understand the importance of local search citations simply because Google’s algorithm is always changing. Google’s algorithm is what determines search results, as they emphasize ranking the websites with the highest levels of trustworthiness at the top that have relevant web pages and keywords.
What determines this trustworthiness? Local search citations.
What is a Local Search Citation?
As we briefly mentioned earlier, local search citations are mentions of your company’s name, address, and phone number on the internet. This is often referred to as NAP data. Local search citations are incredibly important to a company’s SEO strategy because many of these websites where your NAP data will be posted will also allow backlinking opportunities. A backlink is a hyperlink back to your website from a third-party source. Not only do backlinking and NAP data help your business get discovered by new customers, but it also makes your company more reliable. After all, the more a website is talked about, the more legitimate it’s got to be, right?
Types of SEO Citations
Local search citations are broken down into different types: structured and unstructured citations. As a local RV park owner, it’s important to include both types of citations in your SEO strategy.
Structured Citations
When you’re first starting out, chances are you’re going to begin with structured citations. These are relevant business directories and established and trustworthy websites.
Structured citations include:
- Yelp
- Yellow Pages
- Better Business Bureau (BBB)
- Google/Google My Business
- Google/Apple Maps
- Martindale/FindLaw
- FourSquare
- Amazon
- ConsumerReports
- Infogroup
These websites are trusted by Google. So, any mention of your RV park on these web pages will send a signal to Google that your website is also trustworthy since these sites are already carrying around a lot of weight (metaphorically speaking).
When adding your information to these databases/web pages, you must search for databases that are relevant to your industry. A local dry cleaner wouldn’t want to try and submit a profile for Martindale, which is a legal database. Sure, people who hire lawyers also need dry cleaning now and again, but someone searching for a lawyer isn’t going to benefit from data about their nearest dry cleaner or vice versa. Presenting your information to the right audience is how you generate leads. As an RV park owner, you’re not going to want to market to people who have no interest in camping. Rather, you want to try and shift your focus to millennials, who make up 38% of all active campers, and make sure your RV park is listed on sites they use like Facebook, Google Maps, FourSquare, and Google My Business.
Furthermore, you want to make sure that your NAP data is consistent across all of your web pages and directories. Google places a high priority on relaying accurate, relevant information to its users, so even making a minor change such as abbreviating Street to “st” can have significant effects on how Google ranks your company in local search queries.
Unstructured Citations
While structured citations give you more control over how your NAP data is published and presented, unstructured citations are a little less restrictive. Think of unstructured citations as mentions of your company in passing. Your company may be mentioned in a news article, blog post, or review on Google.
While this sounds a little more complicated, we promise you all is not lost. Unstructured citations are typically ranked by their local/industry relevance and domain authority. Remember earlier when we talked about your target audience? Here is where it really becomes important. Let’s go back to the example of a lawyer and a dry cleaner. Unless a lawyer is representing a local dry cleaner in a high-profile case, submitting a guest post on a website that ranks the best tips for dry cleaning your clothes isn’t going to generate the attention the company needs. The same can be said for getting your local RV park mentioned by a blog in Seattle, WA, when your company does business in Sante Fe, New Mexico.
Last but not least, unstructured citations are broken down by domain authority. This is how Google ranks the authoritativeness of a website. Simply put, the bigger the website, the higher the domain authority. As such, your RV park is going to get a higher rank placement if it’s mentioned by websites like Buzzfeed as opposed to your local town’s newspaper.
Benefits of Local Search Citations
Increased Web Traffic
This brings us to our second point: increased web traffic. Many local business owners may not be aware that the more times customers visit their website, the better it tends to rank in Google. This is because Google analyzes how often and how long a customer visits a web page. If they visit it often, then it means they must have found something useful in it. As such, Google is more likely to suggest your business when a relevant search query is entered into the database.Cost-Effective
As a local business owner, you already have mounting costs. Fortunately, many local search citations are completely free, such as Google Maps, social media, and Google My Business. Even paid directories offer affordable rates or annual subscriptions that can fit a variety of budgets.
Increase Customer Confidence
Finally, local search citations give your potential customers more confidence when making a purchase and/or booking decision. If your website doesn’t have any reviews or mentions online, customers may be leery of moving forward for fear of a negative experience. However, if your company is getting all this online attention, the more reliable and trustworthy you become – not just to Google, but to the customers you want to attract and keep.
Contact RV Park SEO for a Comprehensive Local Search Citation Strategy Today
If you’d like to learn more, you can set up a call at the link here.
