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When you run a local Armenian business, you want people coming through your doors all the time. It’s only natural, but to get there, you’ll need all the help you can get. You’ll need to create a website, social media accounts, and, of course, business citations. Now, it’s clear why you need the first two, but why do you need the last one? Well, there are plenty of reasons why local citations are important, and today, we’ll talk about the essential ones.
For starters, let’s see what citations are.
Don’t worry if you don’t know why local citations are important — you’re here to learn about them.
You may have read already that business directories can boost your SEO, and they do that through citations. In essence, these are mentions of your brand name, address, and phone number on the web. These three pieces of information together are referred to as NAP. It’s like your business card, but it’s in digital form.
The chances are that you already have your Google My Business account set up. And if you do, you have at least one citation (arguably the most important one). Still, it doesn’t mean you don’t need more of them. On the contrary, the more of them you have, the easier it will be for your website to get to the top of SERPs.
It’s wise to include a link to your site with each of your citations, but even if you don’t, they’re still valuable to your business. A citation’s primary job is to verify your business information. They’re independent, and if Google sees that your address and phone are the same through the mentions of your brand name, it’ll consider them correct, and it’ll show it to its users.
However, you should keep in mind that the websites where your citations appear are also a factor. The more they’re trusted and visited, the more weight your mention there will have. So, don’t be tempted to add your NAP just about anywhere. If you’re not careful, you might hurt your company more than you’ll help it.
Search engines like Google want every result they show their users to be relevant and correct. And to ensure this is the case, they rely on business citations. So if your info is consistent across Armenian business directories, it shows search engines that your business is credible and legit. In other words, if you play your cards here right, Google will trust you.
As you collect mentions on the web, your site’s authority will grow, you’ll get pushed higher up the SERPs, and you’ll get more visitors. So if your goal is to improve SEO and get to the top of the results, know that citations are crucial for this. You can’t do it without them, but you’ll have to be careful when creating them.
If your NAP isn’t uniform, Google bots might see your company as a scam. They’ll take you out of the search results in no time, and getting back on there won’t be easy as you might hope. You’ll have to jump through plenty of hoops, and you’ll spend a lot of time doing it.
If you have lots of citations, your business will pop up on Google much more.
To make the answer to the question above short – no. There are a few more reasons why local citations are important besides SEO, but they all originate from it. Let us explain what we’re on about.
First off, if you have plenty of citations (and therefore good SEO), your business will be easier to find. And we aren’t talking just about your website here. Your store will pop up on Google Maps, and you’ll see more people coming in. On top of that, your phone number will be broadly available, so you’ll get more calls as well.
Second, you’ll get more third-party reviews. As we know, reviews are vital for Armenian-owned businesses. Google Maps cares about them a lot, so it’ll encourage people to write them. If you get positive ratings across the websites, it’ll boost your ranking, and more people will learn about you. Hence, it pays off to ask your happy customers to leave a review or two if they feel like it.
Finally, you’ll suppress duplicate listings. When you take control of your citations on different Armenian business directories and update them, Google recognizes that this new info is fresh and that it should push it. So, your relevant listings will come up, and all of the old ones you can’t change for any reason will sink further down.
There are two paths you can follow here. You can choose to outsource the whole citation building thing or do it yourself. Although it may seem like a big job, you won’t have any troubles with it if you know what you should pay attention to. So, here are the things to keep in mind.
Social media. Including NAP info in your social media profiles also acts as high-quality citations. Social media are an excellent tool for citations.
As you can see, there are many reasons why local citations are important for your Armenian business. If you want people to visit your store and buy from you, you must build them. Of course, it will take some time to do it and for results to appear, but all your efforts will be well worth it. Just make sure your NAP is consistent, and you have nothing to worry about.
I-AM.AM was founded with the ultimate goal to support the economic growth of Armenia. By connecting Armenian Owned Businesses globally, creating a centralized hub of everything Armenian and implementing numerous projects that will boost the economy of the outer regions of Armenia, I-AM.AM community is creating a self-sufficient economy throughout the country.
Congratulation!