The Best UK Citation Sites for Local SEO

Citations are a key factor in raising visibility in Google’s local search results. Yet, not all citations are created equally. In fact, less can be more when it comes to getting your citations dialled in.

In this article, we outline the essential, general purpose citations that will get your Local SEO off on the right footing. For those of you still not 100% sure what a citation is or why they matter we will provide some other essential reading.

Which Citations are Best?

The reality here is that no one 100% knows what are the best citations. But we can make recommendations based upon the quality and what we see working for the many small businesses who we help in the UK.  

Probably… The Best UK Citation Sites

So whilst no one outside of Google knows exactly which the best citation sites are, I have reviewed the various professional opinions (old and new) from around the web and looked at the research that has been done to determine the likely top UK citation sources.

Additionally, these citations are potentially a solid source of traffic as they can feature on well-ranked pages so we must ensure our business is well represented on these pages with lots of details, photos, videos, and those essential reviews.

Before you dive in, remember the importance of having a consistent address and creating quality citations – think quality and don’t make your citation building just a numbers game.

The Big Boys

These are the big ones you want to get yourself on to start with. They have high authority and are more well-known places to look for businesses.

www.google.com/business

Mapsconnect.apple.com

www.yell.com

www.thomsonlocal.com

www.yelp.co.uk

www.tripadvisor.co.uk

www.scoot.co.uk (The Scoot network includes Touch Local, The Sun, The Independent, The Central Index, and more. List on one, appear on all!)

The UnderDogs

Smaller, less well-known directories and citation sites. These aren’t as widely used as the ones above but they still have great authority and can help contribute to trust and authority for your business (which is so important in the age of E-A-T).

www.cylex-uk.co.uk

www.hotfrog.co.uk

www.locallife.co.uk

www.freeindex.co.uk

www.accessplace.com

www.tipped.co.uk

www.businessmagnet.co.uk

www.192.com

www.manta.com

www.mapquest.com

www.spoke.com

www.uksmallbusinessdirectory.co.uk

www.brownbook.net

Every single one of these sites has value and provides a structured citation and a potential stream of inbound traffic from their own visibility in search so build these citations and build them well.

Verticals & Location Specific

In addition to these general purpose citations, you will likely want to identify any industry-specific (vertical) or location-specific citations. If you are based in Birmingham then getting listed on a Birmingham-specific directory like BizMidlands would not hurt. Likewise, if you are a tradesman then ensuring you have listings on the trade portals like checkatrade.com and trustatrader.com will only help to build trust with potential customers and search engines.

A Site Can’t Rank on Citations Alone

There may be exceptions to this rule for businesses that are hyper-local or in a non-competitive niche but for the majority of businesses you will need a more holistic approach to SEO. Local SEO, technical SEO, on-page, links, authority & E-A-T are all important.

Local SEO is complicated and there are no simple, 100% correct answers. Always remember there are lots of moving parts and it is different for every unique snowflake of a site so find out what you need and what your competitors are doing and build your unique approach and strategy around that.

If you are unsure what SEO areas to focus on drop us a line and we can conduct a (free) SEO audit to identify your SEO strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities along with the top 5 things you can do to improve your SEO today.

Questions or Help?

If you have any local or small business SEO questions then give me a shout on Twitter or Facebook and I will get back to you ASAP.

You may also be interested in our other articles, “What Type of SEO Do You Actually Need? Part 1” and “Link Building Should be Your Last SEO Task”

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6 Responses

  1. Hi Marcus,

    Thanks for this great no-nonsense post! It’s very straightforward and informative.

    It’s great that a lot of the sites mentioned will allow small businesses the opportunity to gain visibility online when their proprietary websites have not earned good ranking positions within search engine results pages, as well as securing referral traffic through providing links.

    Have you looked into the various methods of gaining citations via the national press? For example, the Guardian have released a new app, (Guardian Witness), that allows business owners to submit media for inclusion on the Guardian website. Submissions are vetted for quality and relevancy, of course.

    Thanks again,
    Rachel

    1. Hey Rachel

      I have not come across the Guardian Witness one but certainly, once you have dialled in the standard (structured) citations looking for other opportunities to get your business mentioned all adds to your web and brand equity and will kick back.

      Often, for local businesses just by getting the basics done really really well we can generate really solid local visibility. If people can get listings though in these really authoritative third party sites though it will only help cement that position.

      Thanks for commenting. 🙂
      Marcus

  2. Marcus,

    Great post, I’m interested in your approach to this, do you also build out a load of social media profiles and use semantic SEO as well? We have been working on a campaign on this basis and it is definitely yielding results. I’d be interested in your experiences on this side of things! I’ve found a couple of new directories on that list that I’m not featuring in, so will definitely get placed in those as well!

    Thanks
    Matt

    1. Hey Matt,

      The main use of citations is the build Googles confidence in your address and business. It’s all about getting the sweet spot which we think is about 20-30 citations. Any more and you are asking for trouble. As you probably know, they can be quite difficult to maintain. We are in the process of updating this post which will soon include a downloadable spreadsheet.

  3. great sites I did find my business on lots of them already I found a few sites with a 404 error message page not found though just to let you know

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