A citation is any mention of your business name, address, and phone number across the web, on directories like Yell and Checkatrade, industry listings, and anywhere else your details appear. Getting them consistent is unglamorous, easy to overlook, and genuinely affects rankings.
Get my free visibility auditA human reading "Unit 4, Station Road" on your website and "Unit 4 Station Rd" on a directory barely notices the difference. Google's local ranking systems read it differently, inconsistent citations quietly erode confidence in exactly which business is being referenced, which weakens local rankings.
This is one of the least visible parts of local SEO, and one of the most commonly neglected, since it produces no obvious visual change on the website itself. It's also one of the more reliable, foundational wins available, precisely because so few competitors bother getting it right.
Citation work is folded into the standard local SEO effort under the retainer. It gets checked as part of the initial audit and maintained on an ongoing basis, since listings can drift or get incorrectly edited well after the initial cleanup.
Fewer, correct listings on directories that genuinely matter for your trade beat dozens of low-quality, inconsistent ones. Quality and consistency matter more than sheer quantity.
It gets found and corrected as part of the citation audit. Old or incorrect information sitting on a directory actively works against current rankings until it's fixed.
You can, it's mostly a matter of time and diligence more than specialist skill. It's included as part of the retainer specifically because it's tedious and easy to get inconsistent when squeezed in around running a business.
A free visibility audit covers all of this, and shows exactly what's worth fixing first for your business.
Get my free visibility audit