Which holds more weight..Citations or Social?
-
If a client has budget constraints, would it help local rank more if we placed emphasis on building out a couple citations each month for them or boosting their social posting frequency? Does one carry more weight?
-
And we are so glad to have you, Scott! A very warm welcome!
-
Thanks everyone! What a great community, so glad I joined;)
-
Hi Scott,
While both forms of marketing are important, I agree with members' suggestions that citations should receive first focus. You might try to imagine a Local Search Marketing plan in this order:
On-page optimization===>Local Listings===>Ongoing content publication===>Reviews===>Social===>Linkbuilding===>Video
The last 3 items on that list may be optional, depending on how competitive the client's niche is. Everything on the list is important, but what you must do for each client will vary based on their unique level of competition.
-
When the target is ranking and the option is between social and citation... I would always choose citation as this might not directly help you with conversions but obviously van help you grow your local rankings for multiple key phrases.
If the primary need is conversion then I would say use powerful and effective social strategy as this will convert visitors in to leads!
-
Well they do Junk Removal. Competeing against big guys like 1800 Got Junk. I mean they do social, but barely. Like 4.16 tweets/mo and 2.3 FB posts/mo so far this year. As for citations they just did a blast on Yext and thats it! Right now they really need to do some onsite work and some link building from what I gather.
-
I agree with Spyder, but I also want to ask what is the goal of the client. Do they want to rank well? If that's the case cituations might be the way to go, but if they offer a cool service or have some form of content that you can use you might want to think about social.
-
Thanks man! I was kinda thinking the same thing. I heard a statistic a while back about how many tweets it takes to actually start influencing and the number was crazy big.
-
If they are looking for local leads, go directly to building Citations. Social mentions will do very little to help with Google local rankings. Realistically, unless it is a metro area and you dedicate a lot of time & energy towards social, your efforts will not be show adequate ROI.
Why Citations are Important:
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
-
Google Indexed Images: Website Vs Social Media
I use Pinterest, Twitter and Instagram to post images that are already featured on my website. I have been following a routine of uploading the images to these social media platforms only after I can see Google has indexed the image from my original site. My website is ecommerce and the product images drive sales more than any other factor. The thinking behind my method was that when these images are posted on Pinterest, Twitter and the various Instagram crawler sites (I realise Instagram images aren’t indexed directly), Google would recognise that the image was already attributed to my website. The ‘duplicate’ image would not therefore be indexed and the originally uploaded website image would remain in ‘Google Images’. After completing various searches and reviewing other Q&A’s on Moz, it seems as though this is in no way guaranteed and images reposted on social media platforms may still replace the already indexed image from the website. I am assuming this is because Google views these platforms as more authoritative than mine. I usually change the image by adding logos, text, backgrounds, borders etc before posting on Pinterest and this seems to have worked most of the time (both the original and ‘amended for Pinterest’ versions are often indexed) but images posted on other platforms are usually identical. Does it make sense to continue with my method or am I shooting myself in the foot by reposting these images on social media at all? I obviously want customers searching for products, who then click on an image, to be directed to my site rather than one of my social media pages or worse, an image reposting site. Additionally, If I post images on social media before they are uploaded to my website (for example to tease a product launch), would Google likely class these images as the ‘original’ and therefore be less likely to index the website version of the image once it is uploaded? Any thoughts are appreciated.
Social Media | | g3mmab2 -
Google Analytics Social Settings
Hi, I'm a bit confused about the actual purpose of the social settings in Admin > Property > Social Settings. I've read some blogs saying it just helps analyse traffic that has arrived from your social media pages. Then I've found other sources saying you should add your own domain in there so you can track likes and shares sent from your website to social media platforms. What do I actually need to put in there and how does it help my data? Thanks!
Social Media | | Sally940 -
Language Specific Social Account
We have a managed server company http://www.centerserv.com in 3 languages. The 3 languages are international and not country specific. Should we open 3 different social media account/page for each languages (facebook, twitter, pinterest, linkedin, google+,tumblr)?
Social Media | | groupemedia0 -
How do search engines understand what social pages are official pages of my brand? If my Facebook page name is not my brand name (even though there are links from website to page and vice-versa) will that confuse search engines?
My question is about social shares, and how search engines understand what profiles are linked to what businesses?
Social Media | | PlanetDISH0 -
CSVs From Social Export are Blank
Hi everyone, I'm exporting social metrics as CSV's, but the CSV's don't have any data. This is happening with both the dashboard and the Facebook reports. There is plenty of data, it's just not exporting to the report. What could be going on? Thanks.
Social Media | | kenc1380 -
Various question re SEO and social media
Hi all: It is time for my semi-annual “I don’t have a clue” question. Actually it’s questions since there are three although they may overlap. I am confused about the intersection of social media and SEO. A couple of years ago it seemed like one of the better procedures for link building was writing articles and having them published on Isnare, Goarticles Ezine and the like. Now I am not sure if this is effective anymore. It seems like all of the emphasis is being put on social media sites. Not just Facebook, Twitter Pinterest, and blogs, but big ones (that I don’t have a prayer in the world of getting on) such as Mashable, Reddit etc. How are my efforts best served at this point? Should I still submit articles to article directories or should I concentrate on guest blogging (which isn’t so easy if you want a reputable blog) or try something that I can’t even think of? Second, my blog is a Wordpress Blog that is no big deal and probably isn’t read much. It can be accessed either at Wordpress or through my site. It is listed in my Google Merchant Account, but I can’t imagine anyone reads it. It’s about gifts and products that we sell and is not going to stimulate anyone’s mind. Two things here: First (and I don’t know if anyone will know the answer to this) my site is hosted by Yahoo. There is a tab at the top of my site that takes you to the blog, but Yahoo also has some way to integrate the blog with the website. Does anyone know if this will make any difference? Second, the last several times that I ran by backlinks on Open Site Explorer my Wordpress blog has not shown up. It always did previously right at the top. Any guesses as to why it no longer shows? Finally, in the last couple of months I have had a precipitous drop in orders and visitors to my site. The only thing that I have done is to lower my budget for Google Adwords, but it was never that high to begin with and shouldn’t account for the change. Given the holiday season traffic should be picking up but it is going in the other direction. Does anyone know what is happening here and what to do about it? Anyone with really good insights might get a gift certificate from us (is that permitted on SEOMOZ – if not then forget it). The website is www,uniquegiftsanddecor.com. Here’s a thought – buy stuff from us. (ignore if this is spammy). Many thanks. Don
Social Media | | uniquegifts-2778790 -
Myth or Fact: Social Media Dashboards Bad for SEO?
I want to start using HootSuite to pre-schedule Facebook/Twitter updates, but am plagued by nagging concerns because I have heard that HootSuite may impact SEO in a negative way. Is this truth or bull? If it i true, how so, specifically? And can anything be done to mitigate the negative SEO factors? Also, does anyone prefer another dashboard over HootSuite? Thanks in advance for your inputs!
Social Media | | 406lucy0 -
Social Media and its importance for organic ranking
Hi Community, maybe this question hasn't to be answered directly, but can be answered with a link. I am sure the answer must be out there on the web... 😉 I have a company, a companies website and a companies facebookpage. Now the question: What kind of user activity on my facebookpage is good for the organic ranking in google? Is it only good, when people click the "like"-Button on my homepage (which gives me a nofollow-backlink from facebook - unfortunatelly in most cases hidden for googles eyes)? Is it useful when I get a "like" directly on my facebookpage? Or is it the best to have a status on facebook that is shared very often? Will Google see the connection between a shared facebook status and my website (of course the website is on the info page of my facebooks site...)? I ask that because I wonder how (for example) a viral picture on facebook shared very often can helb my business. Uuuuh, so, where's my answer on the web? 😉 Thank you!
Social Media | | waynestock
André0