Improve Local Search Results Rank with Citations
Improve search ranking performance and get found by new customers with accurate citations in online directories.
One frequent recommendation for improving your local search results ranking is to accrue several mentions of your business, known as citations, with accurate name, address, and phone number (NAP) across several relevant directories. This post provides an overview of 13 online directories where you can add entries for your Canadian business to help with SEO and help your business get found by new customers.
"Local citations either positively or negatively impact local search engine rankings. The number of citations a business accrues, the accuracy of the data they feature, and the quality of the platforms they exist on all influence rankings. Search engines like Google amass data about each business. If what they encounter is accurate, the search engine trusts the validity of the data, which is believed to strengthen the business’ chance of ranking well. However, if the data search engines encounter is inconsistent, this trust is eroded, lessening ranking opportunities."
Use a template to maintain consistency of citation information
To help ensure your citations are identical across the different directory sites, it is good practice to complete a template with the relevant data before you submit the first citation. Without a completed template from which to copy, it is easy to make mistakes and cause variation in your business information that could be detrimental in how search engines interpret the data.
Your template should include the following details:
- Business name
- Address
- City
- Province/State
- Postal/Zip
- Telephone number
- Business contact first name
- Business contact last name
- Business contact email
- Business contact telephone number
- Website URL address
- Business category(ies)
- Business description (up to 300 characters)
- Number of employees
- Working hours
- Sunday
- Monday
- Tuesday
- Wednesday
- Thursday
- Friday
- Saturday
- Payment methods: (Mastercard, Visa, AmEx, Discover, Cash, Check, Paypal, etc)
- Social Media URLs
- Yelp
Use optimal image and logo dimensions
- Logo (400px x 400px)
- Logo (400px x 100px)
- Banner image (1890px x 350px)
- Banner image (852px x 478px)
- Exterior photo (400px x 100px)
- Interior photo (400px x 100px)
- Product photos
- Video
With all of your citation information summarized in the template and the images ready to upload, you can now submit entries into the different directories while being careful to copy and paste from the template to avoid varying the data from one directory to the other.
13 directories for Canadian local businesses to build citations
Here are 13 directories that Canadian businesses can use to build local citations. Because sites with higher domain authority are interpreted to add greater trust to your site and thus improve your search ranking, prioritize higher authority sites over those with a lower authority. The Moz Domain Authority
ranges from one to 100 with higher scores corresponding to a greater ability to rank.
| #1 | Yelp |
|---|---|
| URL | https://www.yelp.ca |
| Authority* | 67 |
| Fee | None |
| From the Directory | Yelps' purpose is to connect people with great local businesses. Yelp had a monthly average of 35 million unique visitors who visited Yelp via the Yelp app and 69 million unique visitors who visited Yelp via mobile web in Q1 2019. |
| Other Comments | Yelp is one of the first citations you will want to create because some of the other directories allow you to add a link for your Yelp citation alongside social media links. By establishing the Yelp citation early, you avoid the rework of coming back to other directories to add a Yelp link later. |
| #2 | Apple Maps Connect |
|---|---|
| URL | https://mapsconnect.apple.com/ |
| Authority* | 100 |
| Fee | None |
| From the Directory | Add or update your business information in Apple Maps to help customers find you. |
| Other Comments | It seems to take a couple of weeks or more for changes to be reflected in the Apple Maps app. |
| #3 | Bing |
|---|---|
| URL | https://www.bingplaces.com |
| Authority* | 94 |
| Fee | None |
| From the Directory | Add your business to Bing for free and help online customers discover your business. |
| Other Comments | If you've already setup your business in Google My Business, Bing Places simplifies the process of setting up your business with a convenient mechanism to import your business information directly from Google. It can take up to two weeks for changes to be reviewed and reflected on your listing. |
| #4 | Foursquare |
|---|---|
| URL | https://foursquare.com/city-guide |
| Authority* | 93 |
| Fee | None |
| From the Directory | Foursquare is the trusted location data and intelligence company providing location-based traffics and analytics to marketers. Foursquare City Guides help you find the best places to eat, drink, shop, or visit in any city in the world. |
| Other Comments |
| #5 | MapQuest |
|---|---|
| URL | https://www.mapquest.com |
| Authority* | 90 |
| Fee | None for basic listing |
| From the Directory | Business listings are a powerful way for local business owners to be found on the web. A MapQuest Business Listing can strengthen the web presence of your business and help your potential clients find you most efficiently. |
| Other Comments | MapQuest offers the basic listings at no charge with an option to upgrade to a premium listing with photos, hours of operation etc through Yext |
| #6 | Bell Business Directory |
|---|---|
| URL | https://businessdirectory.bell.ca |
| Authority* | 83 |
| Fee | None |
| From the Directory | Bell Business Directory is a Canadian online business directory with over 10 million page views annually. Canadian business listed on the Bell Business Directory can choose to be listed on an international Network of International Business directories with over 250 million page views and 1 million visitors annually. The Bell Business Directory is regularly crawled by all the major search engines giving listed companies increased online exposure. |
| Other Comments | The site is dated with visit statistics quoted from 2008, so the accuracy of the traffic claims and frequency of web-crawler visits is questionable. |
| #7 | Enroll Business |
|---|---|
| URL | https://ca.enrollbusiness.com |
| Authority* | 62 |
| Fee | None |
| From the Directory | Enroll Business is an online directory of Businesses and Services. It helps you expand your Business horizons by making your Business Searchable by popular search engines. It's free and easy to create your Business profile. Once your Business profile is created it will be available to thousands of potential customers across the globe. |
| Other Comments |
| #8 | WorldWeb.com |
|---|---|
| URL | Update as of November 2019: The worldweb directory is no longer active |
| Authority* | 58 |
| Fee | None |
| From the Directory | In addition to offering great-rate hotel reservations and car rental reservations, WorldWeb.com is the world's leading travel search engine and directory. This means you have direct access to travel service providers worldwide. Our site specializes in accommodations, tour operators, visitor attractions, restaurants and bars, shops, transportation services and much more. As well, WorldWeb.com features important travel-planning tools such as visitor maps, travel articles and photos. |
| Other Comments | This site could be an especially good fit if you are a travel oriented business. |
| #9 | SmartGuy |
|---|---|
| URL | https://www.smartguy.com |
| Authority* | 57 |
| Fee | $69 USD/month |
| From the Directory | SmartGuy® is the fastest growing directory and exclusive business referral network in the world, already managing over 11,000 city business networks worldwide. Developed to automate the growth of businesses, SmartGuy offers nine proprietary tools designed to quickly grow a business online and offline. Within as little as 2 minutes of signing up, SmartGuy® connects members with up to 1,500 other local referring businesses within each city, one per category, in an automated exclusive business referral network. SmartGuy then promotes them to the public. |
| Other Comments | SmartGuy differentiates themselves from other directories by only adding one businesses in each category, presumably on a first-come(and pay) first-serve basis. |
| #10 | BrownBook.net |
|---|---|
| URL | https://www.brownbook.net/ |
| Authority* | 55 |
| Fee | None for basic listing |
| From the Directory | Brownbook is a global reference resource in which business owners and their agents list their businesses to get found more online. List your business, claim it to verify the details, enrich the listing with additional content like text, photos and videos, add reviews, and get alerted anytime someone reviews your business. Your Brownbook listing helps your website's ranking on the major search engines, driving more customers to your business. Create a free listing, claim it and then enhance it with video, photos, additional text, endorsements, reviews, add lots of keywords. |
| Other Comments | The site was painfully slow when making any edits, After creating the business listing, I repeatedly tried to search for the business using one of the keywords but couldn't find it. |
| #11 | 411.ca |
|---|---|
| URL | https://411.ca |
| Authority* | 54 |
| Fee | None for basic listing |
| From the Directory | Canada’s top exclusively online directory, connecting over 19 million visitors to people and local businesses each year. 411.ca reviews provide searchers with great information about local businesses. |
| Other Comments | The free business listing is only searchable by your business name. A paid enhanced listing is available that is searchable by category. |
| #12 | Call Up Contact |
|---|---|
| URL | https://www.callupcontact.com |
| Authority* | 42 |
| Fee | None |
| From the Directory | The site provides little information about it's service. |
| Other Comments | According to Crunchbase, Callupcontact Telephone Book is a website that lists businesses and their contact details. However because the site's usability is very poor and lacks transparency, I am unable to recommend this directory. |
| #13 | Wand |
|---|---|
| URL | https://www.wand.com |
| Authority* | 32 |
| Fee | None for basic listing |
| From the Directory | WAND is a directory of suppliers, traders, and providers of all products and all services. Buyers can come to WAND and source commodities, specialized items, or other products and services and send requests for quotes to sellers of any products and services.. |
| Other Comments | Could be useful for business to business categories. |
Once your citations have been added and confirmed to be accurate and consistent across each directory, you can now be found by new customers browsing the respective directories. You are also strengthening the signal to Google and other search engines that your website is a trustworthy online property for your business which may improve your rank in search results.
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