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5 Things Window Companies Must Know About Local Citations If you’re not sure what local citations are or why they’re important, you could be leaving money on the table BY WELTON HONG
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s your window coverings business putting in the work to get the right kinds of local citations? If you’re not sure what local citations are or why you need to chase them, you could be leaving large, attractive crumbs on the table for your competition to gobble up. Here are five things window and home improvement companies need to know about local citations.
What are local citations?
When your business is mentioned online along with contact or identifying information (such as your city, address or phone number), that’s a local citation. Citations can appear on a variety of sites, including your own pages and profiles, review sites, local news pages and industry listings. Examples of places citations are found include Google, Yelp, your site’s contact page, Facebook and Window Fashion VISION’s online Industry Resource Directory.
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What information is important for a local citation? The information included in a citation depends on where it appears. Reviews, for example, make up one component of some local citations, but you’re more likely to find this element on Google, Angie’s List or Yelp rather than within industry organization listings.
The most important elements of a local citation are your business’s name, address and phone number. This is known as the NAP, and it helps link your company name with a specific location for both users and search engines. The URL for your website is also sometimes considered a critical component; when the website is included, it’s called the NAP+W. Other elements of local citations can include business category, directions to your location, a description of your business and hours of operation. Fax numbers, email addresses, images and videos, taglines and even the forms of payment you accept can also be integrated into local citations.
