With over 2 months of managing citations for various clients and having learned under the leadership of Lincoln Chan, a local search expert, I feel I have some authority on the subject. In this blog post, I share the most important lessons I have learned for managing this tedious affair and share the resources I use.
Let me reflect on this assuming that you don’t subscribe to any tools to assist you. The knowledge you gain from my experience should help you leverage the tools that you may invest in more effectively. Also, I am speaking from an agency perspective but the lessons should be just as applicable to any other business.I joined ElementIQ in December 2014. Towards the end of that month, the first project was assigned to me – Citations. However, while being assigned the project, I was asked to attempt creating a system such that even a 15 year old could continue from where I left off and do a thorough job.
Step 1 – Before Anything – Central Business Information Sheet
The goal of Citations building in the context of local search optimization is to have your business listed on as many relevant online directories as possible with an accurate and consistent format of Business NAP (Name, Address and Phone Number), along with any further information that the directory allows you to input.
With this goal in mind, the first thing I did was to create a ‘business information’ sheet on the Spreadsheet. Attached is the picture that shows all the information I fill on this sheet before moving on to Step 2.
Step 2 – Citation Audit
I was initiated to citation building with a new client who had a website and a few social media profiles but no real online presence. So, I started looking through Google searching with ‘Business Name’, ‘Address’ and ‘Phone Number’ and looking through a number (up to 10) of Search Engine Result Pages (SERP’s) to find all existing mentions of the business online. Whenever I found a mention, I was noting the information. Over time, I took on more clients and refined the layout of the spreadsheet.
Recording the right information in the right format is essential for creating an easy to learn and duplicable system. The fields I choose to keep for Audit purpose are:
Directory Name – Obviously
Status – Use keywords consistently e.g. Live, Incorrect, Incomplete, Incorrect and Duplicate etc. Consistent use of pre-decided words will help you to manoeuvre your data easily.
Listing URL – Allows the user to be directed to the listing directly from the spreadsheet.
Duplicate Listing URL (if any) – In case there is a duplicate listing on a directory; it helps to have all information pertaining to one directory in one row.
Notes – To record any errors or missing information
Last Review Date – For the benefit of anyone who log’s into the spreadsheet in the future and so you can decide when next to audit.
Step 3 – Building Citations
Having conducted the audit, the next logical step was to start creating citations. This is when things can start to get really interesting if not managed properly. This is especially true at an agency level where you are managing the expectations of several clients. I say this because when I re-visited citation information for some clients the way it was managed before, I had to re-do the audits from scratch. Building citations is like creating a profile on Facebook, except, sometimes it can be more complicated than that. Different directories have different requirements, verification processes and turn-around times. Hence, it can take a series of interactions at times before getting a verified citation on some directories – a process that can take over a month sometimes.
Just as it was with audits, efficiently managing information can save you a lot of time and trouble. The most important thing that is needed, in my perspective, is a clear and easily accessible record of historical data regarding your progress and interactions. With this in mind, let me share how I maintain the Spreadsheet when building citations.
First of all, I make a copy of the audit sheet and put it in a new sheet so that all that information is available to me. The following are the new columns that I add:
Action Taken: Make a note of what you did, be it a tab clicked to inform inaccuracies or actual edits made.
Action Notes: Any message received from the Directory or instructions for what to do next.
Scheduled Follow-up: The date you wish to return to check again.
Follow-up Notes: Notes on progress and current status.
You may want to insert these four columns again as sometimes the whole process can take multiple interactions and follow-ups.
The following picture shows the layout of the sheet I use to create and follow-up on citations:
This whole approach was designed with the objective of achieving consistency and maintaining records in a manner that is efficient and allows for easy familiarity to a new user. I can’t say that this is the best and most effective way as even the best systems continue to evolve and adapt to changes. We have already made process improvements by leveraging tools such as Basecamp and White Spark. However, the objective continues to remain the same which is to manage the project more efficiently, ensure consistency and maintain an easy to access record of historical data.
It is my sincere hope that you find this post useful. We encourage comments and feedbacks and would love to hear if you adopted this system, or better still, have suggestions to improve it.
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