The Importance of Car Dealership NAP and other Citations in Online Reputation Management

Citations are critical for local businesses like car dealerships, since they can drive prospective customers. It is also an effective way to improve the online visibility of dealerships in local search results.

What are Citations?

Citations are mostly basic details or mentions of the dealership, including the dealer name, address, and phone number (NAP). Along with NAP, your website URL, working hours, email address, directions, images, videos, online reviews, links to social media pages, and ratings can also be a part of citations, with or without links to the dealership website.

Dealer listings in reputed online directories also help in building your online reputation.

What are Structured and Unstructured Citations?

Structured citations are the most popular type of citations and these can be found on most business listings.

As the name suggests, structured citations have a particular format depending on the directory. Generally, it includes the NAP format.

Unstructured citations are mostly found in listings such as event announcements, etc. These citations do not have a rigid format but they still contribute to improving the search ranking of your dealership.

How Do You Get More Citations and Business Mentions?

There are ways to get more citations and business mentions.

1. Guest Blogging

Publishing blogs on other authoritative websites can indirectly improve your dealer mentions, citations, and visibility. Many marketers use guest blogging to increase website traffic.

2. Customer Reviews

Dealers can improve their citations and dealer mentions by encouraging more online reviews. Try using apps like Buyerater to make the whole process easy and seamless.

3. Influencer Marketing

If a local influencer talks about your dealership or mentions it online, then the influencer’s followers are likely to recall your dealership ahead of the competition.

4. Communities

Communities and groups in your local area can also help with dealer mentions. Dealers will also have the added advantage of easy segmentation, since these communities will generally be of people with similar interests.

Why are Citations Important for Online Reputation Management?

One of the top search ranking factors on popular search engines like Google is citations. This is more useful during local searches where search results mainly depend on the visitor’s current location.

Using citations, negative search listings can be pushed down and relevant listings can be moved up to the top of search results. Since citations also include online reviews and ratings, they have the potential to build the dealership’s online reputation.

For more insights into citations and its role in online reputation management, Contact Us.