Trust Rank simply means some sites carry more authority and trust than others and if you have links or citations coming from these sites, then you are given bonus points which ultimately increase your rankings. So sites like the BBB.org or Wikipedia or Yahoo Directory may have more authority and so Google may give you 2 or 3 points for that. Again, the theme isn’t always about quantity, its also about quality.
There are tons of ways to get citations, from using directories to blogging, having your business listed on your Local Business Association Website, or mentioning your business on your local newspapers website. One great way is to look at your competition’s citations (currently, Google is listing them all) and see if you can get a citation from the same source. If your competition has a citation, then you will most likely be able to gain one from the same source. Use the obvious.
One of the best ways to get a good head start on citations is to submit your business details through Universal Business Listings. For approximately $30 a dollars a year, it’ll hit the top 30 authority directories & data providers like: Yellowpages.com, Superpages.com, infouSA.com, Acxiom and so on. BTW, this service is really only good for USA businesses, if you are in Canada like most of our clients, then it’s not that great of a service. I’ll be sure to put some great citations spots below for Canadians too.
If you can get your business information into these major databases (like Acxiom, Localeze, & infoUSA) which form the foundation of the search engines’ Local indexes and of a variety of second-tier portals as well, you’ll notice a decent amount of citations point back to your G-Maps listing. This can take 2-3 months before your info populates into these verticals so be patient.
The goal with citations is to (obviously) have more than your competition, but much like link building, you want to be consistently dripping in new citations week after week. Build slowly and consistently. Play for the long haul.
For our clients, we have a long list of places to which we can add citations (all discovered from what Google already indexes as a citation) and we have been collecting this list for quite some time and have hundreds of easily accessible places from which to acquire citations from. You want to develop your own swipe list of great citation spots. I will post 200 or more so common citations at the end of this post from where any business should be able to get a citation from. I’ll do this because I’m such a good guy. If you know of more great citation spots, why not add them to the comment section below and help the community.
We then drip in these citations consistently over time for our clients, often winning them the number 1 spot within the 7-Box. Don’t go slamming citations. Just like you wouldn’t hammer 1000 links at a site overnight, similar rules apply to getting citations. Think Drip, Drip, Drip.
When working with citations, one of the most important elements is consistency. Your DBA name, address, and/or phone number should never change. If you have different information, it can have the opposite effect you desire with your G-Map Listing. Even if you are thinking of using tracking phone numbers to monitor advertising/marketing efforts, I would highly recommend in this arena that you find another way to measure data if possible. There is an interesting post here about using Tracking Phone Numbers in your Local Search Marketing that would be worthwhile reading. I am a metrics fanatic too, but not having the same information about your business name, address and contact number builds distrust with Google (It would with humans too). Consistency is KEY from your citations.
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