10 Most Important Citation Sources in Utah

In this post, we want to help local business in our home state get more exposure and reach more customers. We’ll be taking a look at which directories see a lot of traffic and which have proven to boost business for companies operating out of Utah. If you’re based outside of Utah and you’re looking for more general advice, check out our other post on why you need business citations.

If you’d rather just download the top ciations as a convenient PDF checklist, click here

How You Should Build Business Citations

A citation is any mention of your business in a directory or on another website. These citations could link to your home page or they could include a list of relevant information such as your NAP information—or your name, address, and phone number. Citations are among the best ways to help new prospects find you and they also play a role in Utah Local SEO and can help improve your search ranking above your competitors in your specific niche.

The key to building quality citations is to have a business listing across a healthy mix of different platforms, including:

Business directories
City directories
Industry directories
Social media websites
Review websites

We typically build citations along two main verticals:

1) Citations by Location

Local business is the lifeblood of most industries. This holds true whether you’re a doctor, an electrician, a landscaper, an accountant, or something in between. No matter your industry, you want local customers to be able to find you and for your NAP to be easily accessible.

In this post, we’ll be talking about the most important resources for businesses operating out of Utah, but that doesn’t mean local business operating out of other States are out of luck. Many of the website we list below are nationwide portals that many businesses will find useful. Check out the directories we’ve listed and see which apply to you.

2) Citations by Industry

While we won’t be covering industry-specific sources in this post, you’ll also want to build citations with directories in your niche. For example, doctors should try to build citations on resources such as healthgrades.com, local.webmd.com, and medicalhomeportal.org in addition to the resources listed below.

If you want more information on building local citations for your industry, feel free to contact us or check out this great post by Moz on building citations by category.

Where to Start

The one place your business ABSOLUTELY MUST BE LISTED is Google My Business. Even if you ignore everything else in this article, I hope you pay attention to that. Registering for a business listing with Google is completely free, it lets your business appear on Google maps, and it allows customers to review you on your Google+ page.

You can create your Google My Business listing here.

What follows is a list of additional sources, compiled by cross-referencing the most common keywords found across multiple search categories. We consider the ranking position, the number of results each source generated, and whether or not each source saw enough traffic to actually send business to their listings.

These sources are the ones that you should absolutely try to get a citation on. A healthy mix of social media, city directories, and national directories, these ten sources consistently drive the most results in Utah.

These additional directories are specifically for businesses in Utah. While they don’t drive as much traffic as the ten listed above, locals often consult these portals to discover local businesses.

These directories promote businesses regardless of niche or location. Submit to as many of them as you can for even more exposure.

Note that some of these directories, such as Acxiom and Neustar, are actually data aggregators that will feed your NAP information to other directories on your behalf. Data aggregators are not always free, so you should only apply to these as your budget allows.

Where We Come In

No matter your business, it’s super important to be able to get in front of potential customers in your local area. When they Google something like “Salt Lake City Dentist” or “Plumber in West Jordan” you want to show up as a trusted result—and beat out your competitors while you’re at it.

Of course, building business citations takes time and energy—two things that are always in short supply.

When you don’t have the time to generate local listings, improve your search marketing, or fine tune your local SEO—that’s where we can help. Building business citations is just one of the many strategies we use to help you target a specific demographic and drive new leads to your business.