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Should an SEO Company Build Citations Every Month? [Case Study]
Based on tests we’ve done in the last few years, regularly building citations might not always be necessary, especially if the citations aren’t indexed by Google. It’s crucial to monitor how many citations are in Google’s index to ensure you’re getting value from your SEO efforts.
How Can You Identify if a Citation Matters?
To identify which citations are valuable, start by checking the top 10 to 20 results in a branded search for your business or your competitors. Look for citation sites that consistently appear in these results.
Additionally, tools like Ahrefs can help you analyze which citation sites have a lot of pages in Google’s index, which is a strong indicator of their value.
The Test
We did a recent test where we built a bunch of citations which are often mentioned in local SEO but don’t typically rank for brand terms on Google. The sites we used for this were:
- Merchant Circle
- Brownbook
- Hotfrog
- Manta
- TopRatedLocal
- Cylex
- 2FindLocal
- Foursquare.
After building 15 of these (2 different locations), we were able to see some slight increases to organic rankings.
One of the problems was that only 4/15 citations we built for this test were indexed (26%). So we decided to try and get Google to index the rest. When we did this, we saw rankings increase more.
This sounded great, until we gave it some time, and all the citations we managed to get indexed, started to get removed. 6 months later, only 1 citation was still in Google’s index and rankings had gone back to where they were before.
How Can You Make Sure You’re Getting Value from Your Citation Efforts?
To ensure you’re getting value from your SEO investment, regularly monitor the indexation status of your citations. While this article outlines an example test, this is something we have been able to repeat several times in other industries. If a significant portion of your citations are not indexed, you may be paying for SEO that is undoing itself. Additionally, continue to check the indexation status every 3 to 6 months to confirm that your citations are still contributing to your SEO goals.
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