Your customers look for you in more places than Google. They check Facebook before they book a cafe, look a builder up on Builders Crack, and find a hairdresser through Fresha. Every one of those pages is a chance to be found, and a page with an old phone number on it is a chance to be lost.
Here is what we check about where else you are listed around the web, why the platforms differ by trade, and how to tidy them up in an afternoon.
In this article
- 1. What a citation is, in plain words
- 2. Why the platforms that count depend on your trade
- 3. What we check on each one
- 4. Four common gaps, and a plan to close them
What a citation is
A citation is any page on another website that is about your business: your name, address and phone number on a directory, a booking site or a social platform. Your Facebook page is one. So is your listing on Yellow, Neighbourly or the site your trade's customers use.
Customers use these pages to check you before they call. Search engines and AI assistants read them too, as a cross-check on what your Google listing and website say. When they all agree, you look like a real, established business. When they disagree, everyone has to guess which one is right.
Key point
Accurate beats everywhere. Five pages with your right phone number do more than 20 where half show the number you changed two years ago.
The platforms that count depend on your trade
There is no single list of directories that matters for every business. Retirement villages are found on Eldernet, and hair and beauty is booked through Fresha. Health practices turn up on Healthpoint, and builders on Builders Crack and Houzz. A plumber has no use for a Fresha page, and a salon gains little from Builders Crack.
So we work out which sites your market actually uses by looking at what turns up when customers search for your trade in your city. Every business in your market is then checked against that same set, alongside Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.
What we check
For each platform we look for your page in the places a customer would find it, and then ask two things.
- Is there a page at all? A customer who goes looking for you there and finds nothing moves on.
- Is it clearly yours? We check the name, phone and address on it line up with yours, and for your social pages, whether your own website or Google listing links to them.
That second question matters more than most owners expect. A Facebook page found only through search, with nothing on your website pointing at it, depends on how it happens to rank this week. Link it from your website and your Google listing and the connection holds no matter what.
Your Citations report lists every page we found, says whether each one is yours, and shows which of your market's platforms you are missing. What is on your Facebook page itself, from your About section to your reviews, has its own Facebook report.
Four common gaps
1. Missing from your trade's main platform
This is the one that costs real work. If most of the businesses around you have a page on the site your customers browse, and you do not, you are absent from a shortlist they are already reading. Find out which site that is for your trade and claim or create your page first.
2. Old details left behind
You moved premises or changed numbers, updated the website, and forgot the directories. Customers ring a dead number and give up. Search your old phone number in Google to find every page still carrying it.
3. Social pages nothing points to
A Facebook or Instagram page with no link from your website and nothing on your Google listing leaves a stranger unsure whether it is really you. Add the links to your website footer and to your Google listing.
4. A page that is not quite yours
Sometimes the page that turns up is under a spelling of your name you do not use, or an old trading name. Fix the name, phone and address so they match your Google listing exactly, and the page counts for you rather than raising a doubt.
Picture this
An illustration, not a real business. Sarah runs a dog grooming business in Hamilton, with a website and a Google listing, a Neighbourly page showing her old address, and no Facebook page.
She spends one afternoon setting up a Facebook business page, fixing the Neighbourly address and adding both links to her website footer.
No posting schedule, no content plan. Every page about her now says the same thing, and every one of them leads back to her.
What to sort first
15 minutes today
- Search your business name and note every page about you on the first two pages of results
- Search your trade and city and note which listing sites keep coming up
An hour this week
- Claim or create your page on the main site for your trade
- Correct the name, phone and address on every page you found
- Link your Facebook and Instagram from your website footer and your Google listing
Ongoing
- Keep a list of every page about you, and update them all the day anything changes
- Check the links to your pages survive any website rebuild
Where Marketbase comes in
We have already worked out which platforms your market uses and checked every business in it against them. Find your business by name and your free report shows what is working, what could move, and where you stand.
Seven days' free access opens the how for every finding, in the order that moves you fastest. Sort it yourself, or we'll do it for you.