Listing in On-line Directories for SEO

One way to improve your search engine ranking (SEO) is to have a standardized listing in a number of online directories that are referred to as citations.

Search engines use these citations as independent verification that you are who you say you are.

Part of your 12Faces Local Search Marketing Audit package is citation tracking and new citation building.

This article is a DRAFT version of our recommended method.

Suggested Sequence to Improve SEO with Directory Citations

This requires you to have subscribed to our Marketing Audit tool.

review the results of the first Local Listings Audit. If they are disappointing, prioritize a repair mission in your Workplan we provide
work with your 12Faces team to update your listing profile preferences based on the results from this first pass. If you have a number of listings, change your profile to match them so you build on that start.
you likely have a number of errors in your existing entries. You can connect to those directories and correct them to fit your chosen profile.
you can add additional listings yourself or contact with us to arrange those listings to be done by a professional third party. If yourself, set a goal to get though the list in the first quarterly Gameplan.
Set yourself a goal for how many to add during the Gameplan. You might do all that you want in one pass or you might do (say) a batch each month to spread out the workload or outsourcing expense.

Understanding your Directory Citations Report

Your reports are quite comprehensive and may look a bit formidable at first.

Use this simple guide to read how to get the most value out of your reports.

“How to understand your Citation Tracker Report”

Australian Directories available for SEO

There are a number of available directories and they have different “Authority” meaning how reliable the search engines think they are.

For more information on the directories available and their “Authority” read this article on “Top Australian Citation Sites”

For other countries, you can make your choice from the Menu on the link above.

Outsourcing your Citation Listing and Repair

You can always upgrade your own listings. But this can be time consuming and so uses time that you could be selling to clients at a far higher fee.

It will likely require multiple registrations and you must get each listing particulars identical so the search engine know it “belongs” to you; else it is wasted.

There are two steps you should consider no matter who does the listings;

work out how many directories you want to list in and
decide if you also want to audit the selected ones for harmful duplicate entries. This might be a previous business in your space, a wrong phone number etc. Any such error will confuse the search engines and reduce the impact of your directory listing.

You can outsource the work to a professional third party that we can arrange for you as part of the service. There is a fee for this which is dependent on how many entries you want to do and if you also want an audit performed to remove harmful duplicated entries.

By way of example, consider the following. Note that they are in USD and so will cost more or less in your own currency. They are current at the time of writing but may change without notice.

15 citations: $US45 to insert + optional audit for harmful duplicate listings and removal $US9
25 citations: $US75 to insert + optional audit for harmful duplicate listings and removal $US15

Listing in On-line Directories for SEO