Citations are listings or mentions of your company’s name, address, and phone number anywhere online. Most citations come in the form of listings in directories like Google Business Profile and TripAdvisor, but mentions of your company in blogs and social media posts are still considered citations.
Citations can be inconsistent or flat-out wrong, confusing potential customers and search engines about your business information. You can clean up and correct these errors with citation cleanup services. Here’s everything you need to know about this type of service.
Table of contents
- Introduction to citation cleanup
- How citation cleanup services work
- Companies with the best citation cleanup services
- How to choose the right citation cleanup service provider
- Manual vs automated citation cleanup
- Citation cleanup best practices
- DIY citation cleanup tips
Introduction to citation cleanup
A citation cleanup service is where your provider corrects the inaccuracies in your listings and mentions online. For example, if you have the wrong address for your business in your Google Business Profile, your citation cleanup service provider will correct that for you. Your provider doesn’t just randomly correct mistakes. They ensure that the business information you have online is consistent across the web. This way, potential customers and search engines will have an easier time understanding your business information.
- Incorrect and inconsistent citations can lose you business opportunities. Incorrect and inconsistent citations confuse potential customers and search engines. Customers who want to engage with your business will find the wrong information about your business, resulting in lost business opportunities. Search engines who want to understand your business won’t, resulting in decreased rankings. This can be very damaging to your online presence, particularly for your local SEO.
- Accurate and consistent citations can boost user experience and search engine rankings. Accurate and consistent citations give a positive user experience because potential customers can easily find your business information online. This improves customer satisfaction and trust. They also improve search engine rankings because search engines can easily understand your business information and push you up in relevant searches.
- Citation cleanup services deal with many kinds of citation errors. With citation cleanup services, your provider deals with a variety of citation problems, not just incorrect and inconsistent citations across the web. They also deal with duplicate citations, which can be problematic too because of their potential for confusion and misinformation. Duplicates also fragment your online presence instead of having a unified representation across all platforms. This can have a negative effect on your local SEO efforts.
How citation cleanup services work
Your citation cleanup service provider will first audit your existing citations. Once they have collected the data, they will look for errors, such as inaccuracies, inconsistencies, and duplicates. And then they will finally correct these errors. Some providers also offer ongoing monitoring and management of citations to ensure that there are no future errors, and if there are, they can be fixed immediately.
- Your citation cleanup service provider creates an inventory of your citations. The provider gathers a comprehensive list of all your existing citations. These citations can come from many places across the internet, like directories, online platforms, and random websites. The comprehensive list your provider makes includes your business name, address, phone number, and other relevant business information.
- They identify errors from the data they have collected. Citation cleanup professionals manually review each citation in the comprehensive list to look for errors. They compare the business information in each citation to the accurate and updated business information you have provided when you have employed their services. Many providers also use automated tools to supplement or replace their manual approach. These tools are particularly great if you have a wide variety of citations since they make the process of reviewing data and identifying errors easier and more scalable.
- They correct the errors and report back to you. When the cleanup team finds a citation error, whether it is an inaccuracy, inconsistency, or duplicate, they manually correct the business information. They can log into various online platforms to update the business details that need correcting. This process can take a while, depending on the platform since different platforms have different processes for correction. Some citation cleanup service providers have direct relationships with these platforms, letting them skip the line and correcting mistakes faster. Once the business information is submitted for correction and updated, the cleanup team reports back to you.
Companies with the best citation cleanup services
Here are the top companies that offer citation cleanup services. Many of them offer other related services, like citation management and Google Business Profile optimization.
1. Marketer’s Center
Marketer’s Center is a white label SEO service provider. They specialize in local SEO, and since citations and their accuracy and consistency are an important part of local SEO, they naturally have citation cleanup services. They can do so much more for your citations than just cleaning them up. Marketer’s Center can also build citations, from the most authoritative ones like Google Business Profile listings to the most niche ones with their hyper-local citation services.
- Marketer’s Center uses both automated and manual approaches for a more comprehensive audit. Some citation cleanup service providers use either the automated or manual approach. But Marketer’s Center combines both. They use automated tools like BrightLocal and Whitespark to audit your citations. And then they manually scrape the data and more for a very comprehensive audit.
- They double down to improve the success rate of corrections. Citation cleanup services take about 3-4 weeks to complete, but this can be longer or quicker depending on the response rates of the platforms with the citation errors. Marketer’s Center has a lot of experience with outreach, especially because they have link building, guest posting services, and rich media citations too. They use this experience to improve the response rates of platforms, which then improve the success rates of their citation corrections.
- They have a client dashboard for you to easily track cleanups. SEO agencies with client dashboards are top-notch because they make it easier for their clients to buy, manage, and track their SEO orders. Marketer’s Center is one such company. With their client dashboard, they can even handle the citation cleanup of businesses with multiple locations.
2. AZ Citation Services
Some citation cleanup service providers have diverse digital marketing services, like Marketer’s Center. But some specialize specifically in citations too, like AZ Citation Services. With this provider, you can both build and clean up your citations. They are the ideal choice if your online presence problems revolve around citations exclusively.
- AZ Citation Services offers more than just cleaning up citation errors. The citation cleanup services of other providers are exactly just that – fixing citation errors. But AZ Citation Services has a more thorough approach. They don’t just fix inaccuracies, inconsistencies, and duplicates. They also optimize your listings. They add business descriptions, improve your profiles by adding photos, and sort your listings properly by adding categories and keywords.
- You have full control over your citation options. AZ Citation Services’s citation building and cleanup packages can be customized, so you can prioritize only those you are interested in. This means you can have full control of your citation portfolio. You can have accurate and consistent citations on platforms you are interested in. This customization option is particularly great for those who are in niche markets that may have niche directories.
- They have a delivery time of two weeks. Their citation building and cleanup services have a relatively short delivery time. This is impressive, considering how extensive they are not just in building and cleaning up citations but also in optimizing them for better-quality listings. You also own these listings, and you receive support even after the services have been executed.
3. Loganix
Loganix is a digital marketing agency that has been in business for more than 10 years. They don’t just do citations. They also deal with local SEO in general. And they have other digital marketing products and services like link building and PPC advertising. If you have multiple needs for your digital marketing campaigns, Loganix is an ideal choice.
- Loganix’s citation audit looks deeper than just citation errors. The professionals at Loganix are constantly at work to improve their processes, and it shows in their citation audits. Their audits don’t just look for citation errors like inaccuracies, inconsistencies, and duplicates. They also find high-value citation opportunities to improve your citation portfolio and analyze competitors to see what they are doing with their citations.
- They boast about their manual approach. Some citation cleanup service providers are proud of their automated approach because tools make the process more efficient. But overreliance on tools can be a negative too. Loganix is proud of their manual approach, from reaching out to the platforms to correcting the citations themselves.
- Their manual approach improves their success rate. Loganix scours the web for citation errors and personally reaches out to platforms to correct them. This exhaustive method is effective, especially because Loganix has techniques to aggressively pursue those who don’t reply to their outreach. With this meticulous approach, the service provider averages about a 70% success rate in a six-week campaign period.
4. The HOTH
The HOTH has been around since 2010, and since then, they have become one of the most recognized SEO companies out there. They do have citation building and cleanup services. But their products and services are way more diverse. And they also have reseller programs. This is perfect if you are an SEO agency yourself looking to outsource some work and scale your operations.
- The HOTH conducts 2 rounds of manual outreach to correct citation errors. As an established SEO agency, the HOTH already has standard operating procedures for their processes. Their citation cleanup services are no exception. They know the best protocol for each platform they reach out to in correcting citation errors. And these protocols have one thing in common – they involve 2 rounds of manual outreach via email, ensuring that their webmasters reply and acknowledge that your existing listings need some revising.
- They have built relationships with the biggest directories. What separates the HOTH from other citation cleanup service providers is their relationship with the platforms with your citation errors. They already have a strong relationship with the most common platforms for citations, so the webmasters of these platforms are accommodating to them. This is a big deal because this can mean that they have a higher success rate and are cleaning up your citations at a faster rate.
- They have a reputation to maintain. Back when the HOTH started, the digital marketing industry was plagued with sketchy service providers who did a poor job and had little to no customer support. They became the change they wanted to see. Today, the HOTH has a good reputation overall. And you are sure that they do their best to maintain that reputation by doing a good job correcting your citation mistakes.
5. White Label SEO Lab
Like Marketer’s Center, White Label SEO Lab is a white label digital marketing agency. This means you can resell their SEO services. For example, if you are an SEO agency yourself, you can offer citation cleanup services, but instead of doing the services yourself, you are outsourcing it to your white label digital marketing partner. You get the credit for a job well done, but you technically just rebranded another company’s services.
- White Label SEO Lab cleans and upgrades your citations. Like AZ Citation Services, White Label SEO Lab doesn’t just conduct a citation audit and correct errors. They also upgrade your citations by updating business descriptions, adding photos and videos, and optimizing your listings with keywords. These additional services make their citation cleanup services very valuable as many other providers only do audits and corrections.
- You get dashboard access for free. Having a client dashboard is advantageous for a digital marketing agency. It makes access and management of projects easier and smoother – both for the agency and the client. As the client of their citation cleanup services, of course, you have dashboard access. But here’s the fun part – you actually don’t have to pay for access. You can just sign up for free and customize it right away.
- You can resell so many of their SEO services. White Label SEO Lab is an ideal choice if you want to resell SEO services, including citation cleanup services that are crucial for local SEO. Aside from the client dashboard that makes every process easier, you also have a variety of SEO services you can resell, including PPC and web design. With White Label SEO Lab, you can sell these SEO services even if you have not mastered them yourself, which is an ideal scenario for SEO agencies trying to scale their operations since it saves them time and money.
6. Whitespark
Whitespark is a household name in the SEO industry. They don’t just have a variety of SEO services like citation building and cleanup. They also have software that can help manage various aspects of digital marketing and SEO like your Google Business Profile and overall reputation. Similar to Marketer’s Center, Whitespark specializes in citations and local SEO, so they are definitely a good choice if you want to clean up your citations.
- Whitespark combines citation building and citation cleanup services. Whitespark used to have separate services for citation building and citation cleanup. But for cost-effectiveness and efficiency, they combined the services. With just one service, you can create new citations, improving your digital footprint, and correct errors in your existing citations, optimizing the digital footprint. They also offer customizable packages, so if you want to build or clean up citations only, that’s possible.
- They have a methodical approach that boosts your digital footprint. Whitespark’s in-house listing experts use a variety of techniques to ensure they are boosting your company’s digital footprint with citations. They carefully and manually build citations on the most important sites. They leave no stone unturned in identifying and correcting citation errors. Such a meticulous approach can bolster your local rankings.
- They offer ongoing support with no recurring fee. There are service providers out there that require recurring fees to build, manage, and monitor your citations for errors. This can have its own advantages. But Whitespark believes that there is no need to “rent” your citations and pay for recurring fees. There is only a one-time fee as you own the citations and have absolute autonomy over them.
How to choose the right citation cleanup service provider
The citation cleanup service providers above are top-tier. You can choose any of them and they will do a good job identifying and correcting your citation errors. But some providers are a better fit for your company, depending on your business goals and objectives. It’s a good idea to look at certain factors first before employing a citation cleanup service provider. Here are some tips.
- Go with someone who knows local SEO. Citations are a crucial aspect of local SEO. As much as possible, hire a service provider who knows about local SEO in general, not just citations. When they have a solid understanding of local SEO, they can apply their knowledge and expertise in local search algorithms and ranking factors to provide more value to their citation cleanup services. There is really a difference in quality compared to a service provider who only knows about citations.
- Look at their process and coverage. Examine how comprehensive their citation cleanup processes are. Do they manually audit and clean up citation errors or do they use automated tools? How do they deal with directories that have a thorough verification process, especially those that require phone calls? Also, look at the range of directories they deal with. You want someone who can build and correct citations both in the most popular directories and in niche-specific platforms.
- Make sure they provide customization and flexibility. Your company may require specific conditions or have specific needs. Do you have a very limited budget? Do you have specific objectives, like optimizing your Google Business Profile and managing its reviews? Choose a citation cleanup service provider that is open to customization of packages. A flexible service provider can adjust and address your unique business needs and wants.
Manual vs automated citation cleanup
Citation cleanup service providers often either do citation cleanup manually or automatically with some assistance from tools. There are also providers that combine both for more efficiency and get the benefits of both, like Marketer’s Center.
But what exactly are the advantages and disadvantages of manual and automated citation cleanup? They are important to know because they can help you in choosing the right citation cleanup service provider for you.
Pros and cons of manual citation cleanup
A manual citation cleanup involves manually scraping the internet for citations and errors and fixing them without the use of automated tools. It’s a great approach because the human factor makes it very accurate, comprehensive, and flexible to cater to your specific needs. But the human factor also has its disadvantages. It can make the citation cleanup process more costly in terms of money and time. It can also make the process prone to human error.
- Manual citation cleanup is precise and thorough. The manual approach is human-driven. It’s precise because citation professionals can spot errors that automated tools may miss. It’s thorough because they can make the process as comprehensive as they can to improve their success rate. For instance, they can make the cleanup involve a thorough validation process where each citation is scrutinized. The problem with automated tools is that they sometimes make shortcuts for more results, but those results are not necessarily better.
- It can cater to your unique requirements. Another problem with automated tools is that they have a more streamlined process for cleaning up citations. This can be great because it makes the process smoother and more scalable. But the problem is that it can be so streamlined that it no longer has room for flexibility. When humans take care of your citations manually, they can deal with your unique requirements, like compliance requirements for technical industries and industry-specific nuances.
- It’s resource-intensive and time-consuming. The manual approach is resource-intensive because it requires real human talents to perform the citation cleanup process – from auditing citations to cleaning up citation errors. This approach is also more time-consuming compared to the automated approach, especially if you already have an extensive citation profile. And despite the precision and comprehensiveness of the human factor, it’s still prone to human error.
Pros and cons of automated citation cleanup
An automated citation cleanup involves auditing and fixing citation errors with the help of software tools. These tools help the cleanup process by leveraging data scraping, machine learning, pattern recognition, and other intelligent features. You can say that an automated citation cleanup is more efficient and scalable compared to the manual approach. But it’s not as flexible and can fail to understand complex data and unique business objectives. Software tools also require some kind of maintenance to keep them efficient and effective.
- Automated citation cleanup is efficient and scalable. Automated tools are faster in scraping the internet for citations and citation errors compared to real humans who have to manually visit directories and check citation accuracy and consistency. The tools are also more scalable because of how fast they do the citation cleanup process. If you are an SEO agency yourself, for example, you can handle more clients when you are reselling citation cleanup services.
- It can struggle with complex and unique business situations. The problem with these software tools is that they have a strict process to follow, so most of the time, they can’t make adjustments for complex and unique business situations. For example, these tools may fail in handling and reading a citation portfolio that has a non-standard format in its citations. Because of limited customization and flexibility, automated citation cleanup services are not as accommodating as the manual approach.
- It can introduce errors that shouldn’t be a problem in the manual approach. Industries are continuously changing. Citations are no exception. This means that software tools used in automated citation cleanups need to be updated regularly to keep up with the times. If they don’t, they can fail to adapt to changing citation standards and directory formats. Their algorithms can also misinterpret data. This is a layer of complication that the manual approach doesn’t need to worry about.
Citation cleanup best practices
It also helps to know and understand citation cleanup best practices. This way, you are more informed when looking for citation cleanup service providers. If they do these best practices, chances are, they have a great citation cleanup service. You can also keep these tips in mind if you are planning to do citation cleanup yourself.
1. Use a consistent business name
Have a standardized naming scheme for your business. Are you called Marketer’s Center, Marketers Center, Marketers Centre, or Marketer’s Center LLC? It’s important to have consistency in your business name across your citations, so potential customers and search engines clearly know about your company and brand. This also avoids confusion.
If you have a consistent business name, it’s also easier to do citation audits and cleanups because the name is standardized. It’s easier to review your citation profile, look for errors, and implement corrections.
2. Standardize your NAP information
NAP stands for Name, Address, and Phone Number. Yes, it’s not just your business name you should standardize. Your address and phone number need to be consistent across your citations as well.
Your business location and contact details are important because they lead to business opportunities. Imagine if a potential customer just learning about your business find different phone numbers in your various citations. This customer may end up not contacting you because of the conflicting information. It also doesn’t look good on you as a business because conflicting information gives the impression of incompetence.
3. Optimize the categories and features in directories
Directories have categories to properly sort business profiles. For example, if you are a coffee shop, there could be a “coffee shop” primary category and a “breakfast spot” secondary category. There could also be subcategories that give potential customers and search engines more details about your business. “Espresso bar” and “specialty coffee” could be subcategories for a coffee shop.
There are also features like “free wifi” and “pet-friendly,” so make sure to select these as well if they are applicable to your business.
Categories, subcategories, and features don’t just help directories sort business profiles. They also help in showcasing the attributes and specialties of the businesses.
4. Utilize local keywords
Look for keywords relevant to your industry and locality using keyword research techniques and tools. And then sprinkle them on your citations to help rank for them. Thankfully, there are many areas in these directories where you can incorporate keywords. The business description field is the most important one.
The technique of looking and incorporating keywords into your citations is another reason why you should get a citation cleanup service provider who knows local SEO. A provider who is competent in local SEO knows how to use these keywords to your advantage. If you like, the provider can even optimize your website and social media profiles to further boost your local SEO.
5. Conduct regular citation audits
Some citation cleanup service providers have recurring fees because they can manage your citations too to regularly look for errors and whatnot. If you are interested in this type of arrangement, make sure your provider regularly conducts citation audits.
Citation audits are great not just for building and understanding your citation profile and identifying citation errors. They are also great for knowing directory changes, industry updates, and other developments that may affect the accuracy and consistency of your citations.
DIY citation cleanup tips
It’s better to hire citation professionals to clean up your citations. They have the expertise and experience for this process, so for sure, they could do a good job. But it’s also possible to do this on your own, especially if you have a really tight budget. However, take note that doing things on your own can actually cost you more time and money because of your ineffectiveness and lack of knowledge and experience. Here are DIY citation cleanup tips to increase your chances of success.
1. Create a comprehensive spreadsheet
Put your business name, address, phone number, and other relevant business details in a spreadsheet. Make sure that your primary business details are consistent across the board. There is more wiggle room for the other relevant business details, like business descriptions and categories, since they can differ from directory to directory.
A comprehensive spreadsheet helps in standardizing and tracking all your business details. It can help you both in citation audits and citation cleanups. It can act as a master document and reference for your official citation details.
2. Check on major platforms first
Focus on the major directories first like Google Business Profile and Yelp and prominent social media platforms like Facebook. These serve as your primary citation sources, so you have to prioritize them. Potential customers and search engines may give more weight to these authoritative and popular platforms too, so you get more bang for your buck.
Once you have covered the major platforms, you can move on to industry or niche-specific directories like TripAdvisor and local directories like your local chambers of commerce. These specialized platforms can expand your business reach and digital footprint and help attract high-quality leads for your business.
3. Actually claim and verify listings
Do you even have citations to clean up? If you don’t, focus on building citations first. Claim your listings on the major directories first and then move on to the more specialized platforms. And then verify your listings to boost your claim and profile. Different directories have different processes for claiming listings and verifying their legitimacy, so this can consume a significant amount of time and effort.
Again, this highlights the importance of hiring professionals to do the citation building and cleanup for you. Many times, they already have relationships with these platforms, streamlining the citation processes.
4. Enhance your listings with reviews
Citations are not just for business information. They also help with actively attracting and engaging with your audience. For example, in your Google Business Profile, you can make a variety of posts like announcing special events and showcasing your products and services. These business profiles can also contain reviews, boosting your authority and improving your social proof.
Encourage your satisfied customers to leave reviews, but be careful of incentivizing them too much in exchange for reviews because that’s usually against the terms of service of the directories. Don’t forget to reply to reviews too, thanking those who leave good reviews and explaining your side and learning from those who leave bad reviews.
Technically, review management is an entirely different beast. But it’s something you should keep in mind when you are handling citations. Luckily, many companies that have citation cleanup services also offer review management services.
5. Seek professional help when needed
Citation cleanup can be very complex. This is especially true if you already have a huge citation profile and you have unique business requirements. Sure, you can do it yourself. But this can mean you are hiring new in-house staff or delegating members from other departments to do the citation cleanup for you. Because this is not your specialty, this can lead to problems.
Seriously consider hiring citation cleanup service providers instead. Many of them have customizable packages to suit your budget and unique needs. And they can also send you reports to break down your money’s worth. Hiring them can save you the headache of cleaning up citation errors yourself.
Accurate and consistent citations are an important part of your online presence
It’s vital to have accurate and consistent business information across various directories and platforms online. Inaccurate and inconsistent information can confuse potential customers and search engines. To correct these, get citation cleanup services.
Remember that these services are not just a matter of correction. They also serve as investments to improve your overall online presence.
