A Local Citation List For UK Businesses

Top Local Citation Sites List for UK Businesses That Will Boost Your Local SEO

As a busy business owner the importance of Local SEO for businesses in the UK can seem a little bit of an obscure notion. But there’s nothing obscure about the simple fact that local online visibility brings in more clicks, phone calls and more customers. A significant factor in winning the local exposure war is your presence on a range of local “citations” and listing services. These websites contribute directly to your brand’s visibility.

We’ll also give you a useful local citation sites list for UK businesses to help you improve your online visibility, attract more potential customers, and increase your domain authority. Or, feel free to throw up your hands in exasperation and ask us to handle the sometimes time consuming process for you.

Local citations are simply listings of your business on more authoritative directories where the business information is structured in a specific way: your business Name, Address, and Phone number add up to your NAP details. It should really be NAPw as a link from the listing, pointing to your website is important.

The more local citations you have, the more likely your business will show up in local search engine results pages (SERPs) for local searches related to your industry or niche. However, beware! After years of most citation services being completely free, most are steadily moving over to the Freemium model as they cash in on the value that they have created. This means you can get a basic listing for free but the ability to add a full set of data will cost you cold hard cash.

The Ultimate Local Citation Sites List

To help you get started, I’ve compiled a list of the top UK citation sites for businesses. There are names that you’ll be familiar with and others that seem like they are straight out of Chat GPT authored role play… but they are real, gently influential sites. By creating accurate, consistent listings on these sites, you can improve your own brand’s online visibility, attract more potential customers, and increase your domain authority. Let’s dive in and build local citations! Use the supplied links to access the registration / sign up page for each of the services mentioned.

Google Business Profile

Free

A Google Business Profile (GBP as it is now named) is the first priority for any local business looking to improve its local online visibility. It is specifically aimed at brick and mortar premises where customers can walk in and meet you face to face or make purchases.
Set Yours Up Here: https://www.google.com/intl/en_uk/business/

Secondly it allows businesses who deliver services or goods to customers addresses to create a listing and hide their address, if they don’t really serve customers at their own location. This is listing as a service area business (SAB) This usually applies to a lot of local trades people.

A GBP listing, lets your business show up in Google’s local search results (in the Local Pack – the three map listings that usually appear near the top of the results) and on Google Maps. You can add your business information, photos, and even respond to customer reviews. Critically, you need to choose the business category you list yourself under so that you give your business the best chance of competing with the others out there. Not sure what category fits you best then see the article about Pleper here.

Google are so keen to monopolise the space on their search results page that this listing has sprouted all sorts of add-ons. Accommodation businesses, hotels and guest houses can run bookings directly from the listing for instance. Food businesses can include a link to their menu page and there is even a business alert driven presumably by the locations of phones in the pockets of diners.

Finally there is the recent addition of Posts. These allow you to put out regular updates which have a lifetime of around 7 days before they expire and fade into the background. Up until recently I mistakenly treated these as similar to social media posts. However that is not the way to use them. Use the posts to highlight the content (i.e. the services and products) that you offer – regularly. This is also the place to showcase any special offers, events or company news. Similar to a social media post, but not quite the same.

Google Business Website

Free

This is a frequently ignored “obscurity”. It is the leftovers of the old Google Sites project. In effect it is a semi-automated small website built around the information you supply to your GBP listing (above).

It’s not a powerful citation, but it does add to the “oomph” of the main listing. So make sure you follow the prompt and fill out your details as fully as possible and remember to publish this when you are happy with it. It’s a very useful mini-website for those businesses that don’t have or don’t want a full website.

Bing Places

Free

This should be second in any business’ listing project. It effectively lists your business with Google’s only real rival. It’s similar in structure to Google’s and you can actually sync it with your Google Business Profile so that both are consistent with each other. If you have a Microsoft account connected to the business, you can simply log in to the system with that. With both Bing and Google you can list managers to look after the listings for you.
Set up your Bing Place Here: https://www.bingplaces.com/

Apple Maps

Free

Getting listed on Apple Maps is an essential task. You may be surprised to learn that it has even higher authority than Google, Bing and Facebook! Accessing the site can be somewhat inconsistent depending on whether you have an active Apple account or are a non-Apple individual. A local listing that’s worth persevering with.
Get Your Business’ Apple Connection here: https://appleid.apple.com/account

Facebook Business Page

Free

Your Facebook page also acts as a very high authority local citation. So double check that your NAP information on the page’s About section is consistent with the rest of your listings.

Foursquare (City Guide)

Freemium

Foursquare started out as mobile phone, rating app for places you’d visit. It grew it’s database of businesses and venues rapidly. Now it’s got to the point where it has become what we refer to, in the trade, as an “aggregator”. Aggregators are effectively high authority nodes of the local data ecosystem, which are referred to by other clusters of lower authority listing sites, to get accurate business information.

Foursquare is slightly different to some sites in that you verify yourself as a human and then you can take control of, or create your business account. In 2020 Foursquare acquired the other big aggregator that was of interest to businesses in the UK: Factual.

To get your business listed in Foursquare and claim your listing you now have to pay. Last time I paid for one it was around £10 but I can’t find a definitive figure anywhere at the moment.

Once you are listed your data will be available to dozens of other sites which spreads your footprint further. Get Foursquare before the mast!: https://foursquare.com/add-place

Yahoo Local

Freemium

Yahoo used to be one of most important listings available. Though it has faded from the limelight, it still carries authority. In the UK, Yahoo local listings are managed by Infoserve and it can be a tedious process trying to get a free listing accepted – followed by a 6 month purgatory as you wait for it to go live.

All this is to encourage you to buy into Infoserve’s own listing management and other digital marketing services. Usually it is most effective to phone the number on the listing request page.
Yahoo… let’s do it!: https://www.infoserve.com/Business-Listings#YahooLocal

Scoot

Freemium

Scoot is another UK-based business directory that allows you to create a free listing for your business. It’s effectively a small aggregator. Getting listed in Scoot distributes your data to Touch Local, The Independent, The Mirror and Web.com. (Thankfully – the Sun directory seems to have vanished!)
These are all themselves well trusted data sources which are free for your initial listing which will give you a place on a results page with other competitors. A small fee of £10 every years gives you an individual listing page on each site.
Scoot it! https://www.scoot.co.uk/add-listing

WAZE.com

Free-ish

WAZE is a popular GPS navigation tool. Getting listed is sometimes awkward so we tend to use third party providers who are trusted to submit checked data. It is a very high authority listing so worth the trouble to be listed.
Though iot’s free, you may have to pay a third party provider to get you listed here easily.

Central Index

Freemium

Central Index is a business directory that has developed its own speciality. Over the past several years, Central Index has taken over all of the local newspaper business directories… even our own News and Star up here in Carlisle. It is now merging services with 192.com as well.

When businesses add their information they will add  your business to your nearest local news media business directory. You’ll also be listed in dozens of other non relevant town directories which obviously all scrape the central database for information. It is free to add a basic listing, and the site has a growing domain authority.
Get Indexed: https://admin.centralindex.com/add/index-card

Yell

Freemium

Yell is perhaps the UK’s most familiar online business directories and it remains a top citation site for local businesses. The listings are free but they are Yell’s lead gen mechanism to help them sell you a range of their own online marketing services. These include web design, SEO(?), and PPC advertising.

As usual with the Freemium model, the bait is that you will be listed ahead of all the free listings. If your target market uses Yell a lot, then paying will generate ROI!
Ask nicely… don’t shout! https://www.yell.com/free-listing/

Yelp

Freemium

Yelp is a very popular review site that allows businesses to create listings and manage their online reputation. It’s most appropriate for brick and mortar businesses such as shops, restaurants and hotels and it is an important reputation management site because of the power of its reviews.

It’s a reasonably effective way to attract potential customers. Yelp is also referred to by other online directories, such as Apple Maps and Bing, which can further improve your local search visibility.
Get yelped at here: https://business.yelp.com/

FreeIndex

Freemium (Not quite what it says on the tin! 🙂

FreeIndex is a UK-based business directory that allows you to create a free listing with paid enhancements. It has over 3 million registered users and is known for its user-friendly interface and comprehensive reviews system.

The owners have become much stricter about data quality recently which seems to have helped raise this listing’s worth again.
Go on – it’s free-ish! https://www.freeindex.co.uk/signup.htm

Cylex

Freemium 

Cylex is another United Kingdom-based directory that helps businesses to create an online profile and promote their services to potential customers. The platform also allows businesses to add photos, videos, and other multimedia content to their profiles.

Cylex is possibly the most unsung hero of the citation world. They operate very strict data verification checks, including manually checking documentation.
Get your name on Cylex: https://www.cylex-uk.co.uk/signin?view=register

The Second Tier

Citation Finale

In total there are around 200 different general listing sites in the UK. Added to that there are dozens of specialist or niche listing sites such as professional directories of registered members, chambers of commerce, networking groups, supplier listings and many more. These specialised citation sites are often paid subscription services because of their professional status and because they can give an even stronger boost to local business visibility: because they are niche specific and therefore highly relevant. Of course, you can always save yourself the grief of setting up endless directories and ask ClimbHigh to get the job done thoroughly for you. WE work though a third party provider – BrightLocal, who have proven very reliable and efficient at getting listings in place, including on the awkward to access sites. BrightLocal is a popular Local SEO platform, that provides a wide range of local SEO services for businesses. So a little plug to finish!   Book a Demo Now with BrightLocal to Learn More! It’s an affiliate link so their is a remote possibility I may get paid if you sign up via this link.