Law Firm SEO: What are local citations?

In this segment of Custom Legal Marketing's Law Firm SEO series, we talk about local citations. You have probably heard the term “local citations” but what exactly are they and why does your law firm need them?

Basically, a local citation is the mentioning of your law firm's name, address, and phone number. So Your Yelp listing? That's a citation. Your Google My Business listing? Also a citation. In fact, if your state bar association publicly publishes information on licensed attorneys, your page or listing is also a citation.

Why are they important? Google looks to local citations as verification of what you have told them in your Google My Business listing.

While the Name, Address, and phone number make up the basic components of a local citation, they can include additional data about your firm: Information like business hours, customer reviews, categories, pictures, and videos. As a rule of thumb, you should use every feature available on a listing.

If they allow a long description and a short description, write unique content for both. If they allow you to include your listing in multiple categories, get specific as possible and cover as many of your practice areas as you can. Also, add multiple images. You want all of your local citations to be robust and accurate.

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