Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Local citations from business directories in other countries
-
Hi all,
I normally work for clients in my home county (The Netherlands) and with local citation building I focus on Dutch websites or well know .com websites in the Netherlands. My rule of thumb kinda was, if it’s not known in the Netherlands it isn’t worth getting mentioned there.
Since The Netherlands are pretty small and I think Google ain’t perfect I was wondering if it makes sense to list a Dutch business on any .com business listings that are internationally big, but aren’t well known in the Netherlands.
Two reasons that got me thinking this direction:
- A big well known Dutch company offers a service such as Moz local and did integrate their service with several international business listing websites that I never heard off, since these business directories focus themselves on other parts of the world.
- Google ain’t perfect and I think they got more budget to identify trustworthy business directories with an international focus or a focus on America then with a focus on The Netherlands.
So I’m wondering if it makes any sense to list a Dutch business on let’s say the top 20 international business directories (although these directories don’t have any brand recognition in The Netherlands).
-
Thank you both! This really helps.
-
Hi Bob,
I think Patrick is on the right track with this. If you have a legitimate connection to these other companies, it won't hurt you to be internationally listed. What I can't say is whether it will help you, but I don't feel that it will hurt you in any way.
-
Hi Bob
If you legitimately do international business and have partnerships across the world, I would imagine they don't have an issue with it as long as your are staying relevant and on topic with your listings.
I would check these out:
International SEO (Moz)
The International SEO Checklist (Moz)Hope this helps! Good luck!
-
Hi Patrick,
Thanks for your response!
I did read the resources on Moz and couldn’t find an answer to this particular question. Ignore the low quality sites and focus on the top 50 comes the closest to what I’m looking for.
Any thoughts about how Google handles citations of a Dutch business on big international business directories?
-
Hi Bob
Take a look at Whitespark. According to their FAQ page, they do citations for Holland.
I would also take a look at competitors and also see what kind of opportunities or partnerships that they are taking advantage of. You can use this resource from Moz on the subject.
Here are some other helpful resources:
How to Have a Successful Local SEO Campaign in 2015 (Moz)
The 2014 Local Search Ranking Factors (Moz)
How to Perform the Ultimate Local SEO Audit (Moz)Hope this all helps! Good luck!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Using PO Box/Virtual Address for local citations, but not GMB?
Hello. So, I am aware that it is in violation of Google My Bussiness's terms of service to use register a PO box/virtual address with GMB, but is it problematic to use such addresses for general link building with local citations, such as local directories and resource pages? Would the cons outweigh the pros (more backlinks)? And what about using one of these kinds of addresses on my website, but not GMB? Is it all so interrelated nowadays that I should steer clear of publishing a virtual address anywhere? That just seems hard to wrap my head around as PO Boxes have served a valuable function for small businesses for some 150 years. Thank you, Jon
Local Listings | | custardextract0 -
How do I rank for a different business categories on google local?
Hello, How do I appear on the local listings for google in different categories or services that I offer? For instance, we're a physical therapy clinic by trade but we specialize in orthopedics, sports medicine, and lower back pain. Thus, how do I rank on google local for these types of services? Currently, we rank for physical therapy but we also miss out on a big part of our business by not ranking for these listings on local. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Cheers, Scott
Local Listings | | scottgray06200 -
Google Business Listing with no physical office location
Hey, everyone! As a business owner who works from home and doesn't have a physical office location. Is setting up a Google business listing without location going to hurt my local search ranking? Should I get a virtual office so I have a physical location? Thank you!! 😃
Local Listings | | ichorstudios0 -
Address consistency issue between GMB and directories
We have a mortgage broker client, ABC, who shares an address with another business, XYZ who is a loans company. A previous SEO agency created GMBs for these 2 businesses using the same physical address and recently, we had to resolve this issue of duplicate address with Google. ABC was happy for us to fix the issue up by putting a unit no. "A" thus making their address "#7A Smith Street" and business XYZ now has #7B on their GMB. Our question is will this affect consistency if we were to build citations without "#7A Smith Street" but just using "7 Smith Street" which is their REAL physical address? Business XYZ has also just contracted us for SEO which means we will end up building citations for 2 businesses with the same business address (but different phone numbers). Should we actually continue using "#7A" and "#7B" for citation building even though that's not what their address is? Thank you in advance for your response!
Local Listings | | Gavo1 -
Do You Know What's Triggering Your Local Packs?
Hey To All My Local Pals, Here 🙂 Recently, I watched a totally fascinating LocalU video in which Mike Blumenthal introduced a hypothesis that there may be a way to analyze what, specifically, is triggering a specific local pack. Now, Mike is stating that correlation is not causation in explaining this, but basically what he starts talking about at around 4:40 in the video is that what you are seeing rank well in the local packs may be demonstrably caused by what you see ranking organically beneath the pack, or may be caused by totally different signals. Mike says, _"If you're seeing the top 10 results are all IYP industry sites, and there's a pack showing, and the highest local site is 24 or something in organic, it's unlikely that that's what's triggering the pack. And so then you want to look at third-party triggers and see if that's what's actually triggering the pack." _ Obviously, all of us who do Local are familiar with the idea that a tremendous variety of elements contribute to pack rankings, but I am particularly intrigued by the idea of looking at the organic result beneath a pack and determining that there is little or no correlation between them, and this then driving one to look elsewhere for contributing factors. In a recent response to another thread here on Q&A, I discussed some common local pack ranking failure causes when organic rank is high. What I'd love to see is whether, if you look at some of your clients' desired packs, can you tell if organic signals are driving them, or can you see that it's not organic signals driving the pack, as Mike suggests. What, in those cases, does appear to be driving the packs? I'd be so interested in a discussion on this. What do you see? What do you think of Mike's suggestions?
Local Listings | | MiriamEllis9 -
How to find which directories to submit my new site?
Hi Guys So as I'm just starting out, I have been told and read certain blogs that in the early stages I should submit my site to certain directories, only I would not have any idea which directories I should submit my site to, besides the few that I already know. Any idea how I could find this out? Cheers
Local Listings | | edward-may1 -
What To Do With Two Business Having The Same Name?
Hi friends, We have a client who is in a peculiar predicament... essentially his business and his biggest competitor share the same name. Officially on their business licenses they are differentiated by the year they were each established, but in all their marketing, on their website, and in the community they are both known by the exact same name. When the company name is searched for, the competitor shows up #1 organically with the map pin as well as in the knowledge graph, and our site shows up number 2 without any any map pin or Google+ page site link or anything. We thought we could differentiate ourselves by changing his Google+ page name to his official business name (with the date) and building a bunch of really good citations with that official business name, but we still haven't made a dent for his branded keyword, and our Google+ page site links aren't even showing up. Has anyone run into a situation like this and any suggestions?
Local Listings | | localtrifecta_im0 -
Bright Local - Citation Burst. Winner or Loser?
Bright Local have a package called "Citation Burst." This looks great but, we all know directory submissions can have an extremely negative impact. Has anyone used Bright Local for Citation Burst, please let me know? Thanks Gary
Local Listings | | GaryVictory1