Module 9 of 13

Links, citations and digital PR

Which mentions of your business are worth pursuing, which are worth ignoring, and which will actively hurt you.

6 min read · free, no sign-up

Two different things

A citation is a mention of your business details — name, address, phone — whether or not it links to you. A link is a clickable path from another site to yours. Local visibility uses both, in different ways.

Citations mostly help by corroborating that you exist and your details are what you say they are. Links can also send you actual visitors, which is the part owners forget to value.

What is worth having

Links from places a real customer might plausibly be: the local paper, a trade association register, a supplier's "where to buy" page, a club or charity you genuinely support, a directory people actually use.

The test is simple and it is not about SEO: would you be pleased to be mentioned there if search engines did not exist? If yes, pursue it. If the only conceivable reason is ranking, that is the definition of a link scheme.

What will hurt you

Paid link packages, private blog networks, mass guest-post placements, and reciprocal-link exchanges are link spam under Google's policies. The risk is not that they stop working — it is a manual action that removes you from results entirely, which is far more expensive than never having done it.

This is also why an honest directory sells visibility and advertising, never "a dofollow backlink". Paid placement should be marked as sponsored, and that is the correct outcome, not a loophole to avoid.

In practice — A Sheffield joinery workshop

They sponsored a junior football team's kit for £300. The club site listed sponsors with links, the local paper covered the new kit, and two parents became customers within the season.

That is digital PR: a real thing happened in the world, and the coverage followed. Nothing about it needed a marketing agency.

Action checklist

  • List the organisations you already have a genuine relationship with: suppliers, trade bodies, clubs, charities.
  • Check whether each has a members, sponsors or stockists page, and ask to be listed.
  • Claim listings in directories real customers use, and keep them accurate.
  • Do something locally worth reporting, then tell the local paper plainly.
  • Refuse every "we can get you 50 backlinks" email.

Free tool for this lesson

Campaign link builder does this lesson's work in your browser. Nothing is stored and no sign-up is needed.

Exercise

Write a list of ten organisations that would have a legitimate reason to mention you, with the specific page on their site where the mention would sit. Contact the easiest three this week.

Time needed: 40 minutes

Read the source

Primary documentation, so you can check anything here rather than take our word for it.

Working through this and want your business listed while you do? Add it free. A listing costs nothing and promotion is always optional.