I get this question regularly in my SEO University cohorts: ‘Should I be building citations or backlinks?’ The honest answer is both, but they serve different purposes and the right balance depends on where you are in your local SEO development. Confusing them or treating them as interchangeable is a common mistake that leads to misallocated effort.

What Citations Are and What They Do

A local citation is any mention of your business name, address, and phone number (NAP) on another website. This includes structured citations — directory listings on platforms like Yelp, Apple Maps, Bing Places, industry directories — and unstructured citations, which are mentions of your business in blog posts, news articles, or community sites that include your contact information even if they are not formal directory listings.

Citations are a trust signal for Google’s local algorithm. They help Google confirm that your business is real, located where you say it is, and operating under the name you claim. The more consistent your NAP appears across authoritative platforms, the stronger the trust signal. Inconsistency — different phone numbers, address variations, alternate business name spellings — weakens the signal and can suppress local rankings.

Citations do not pass authority in the way backlinks do. A Yelp listing with a link to your website does not carry the same ranking weight as an editorial link from a relevant local publication. But citations are foundational: without a solid citation profile, you are missing a core signal that Google uses specifically for local ranking. The full mechanics are explained in my local citations guide.

What Backlinks Are and What They Do

Backlinks are hyperlinks from other websites to your website. They are a core ranking signal in Google’s general web algorithm and have been since PageRank. A link from a relevant, authoritative site tells Google that your content is worth citing. The cumulative effect of your backlink profile substantially determines your domain’s ability to rank for competitive queries, local or not.

In local SEO, backlinks matter for ranking in the organic (non-map) local results and for the domain authority that feeds into your overall local prominence. A business with strong domain authority from quality backlinks will, all else being equal, outrank a competitor with weaker authority even if both have solid GBP profiles and citation profiles.

Local backlinks — links from other businesses, organizations, media outlets, and community sites in your geographic market — carry extra relevance signal for local queries. A link from the Tempe Chamber of Commerce or a mention in the Phoenix Business Journal is more valuable for local rankings than a generic directory link from a national site with no geographic relevance.

The Key Differences

  • Citations confirm identity and location; backlinks confer authority and topical relevance
  • Citations have diminishing returns; once you are listed in the major platforms consistently, adding more low-quality citations adds little. Backlinks continue to compound with quality additions.
  • Citations are easier to build at scale; getting listed in 50 directories is straightforward. Earning 50 quality editorial backlinks requires real effort and usually real content worth linking to.
  • Citation errors actively hurt you; inconsistent NAP data across citations creates negative signals. Backlinks are generally neutral to positive (with exceptions for obviously spammy links).
  • Citations are specifically local ranking factors; backlinks affect both local and broader organic rankings.

How to Prioritize Between Them

For a business starting from scratch, citations come first. Get your NAP consistent across the core platforms before you worry about link building. This is foundational work, and it is relatively straightforward. The NAP consistency framework is a good starting point.

Once the citation foundation is solid, shift focus to backlinks. For most local businesses, the best link-building approaches are:

  • Local chamber of commerce and business association memberships (usually include a directory link)
  • Sponsorships of local events, sports teams, or nonprofits (sponsor pages often link to sponsors)
  • Local press coverage through newsworthy activity, community involvement, or expert commentary
  • Partnerships with complementary local businesses for mutual linking where it makes sense for users
  • Content that earns links naturally: local resource guides, original research, or genuinely useful tools

At Salterra, when I run a local SEO audit, citations and backlinks are evaluated separately because the remediation strategy for each is completely different. A citation audit is about finding and correcting inconsistencies. A backlink audit is about identifying gaps, quality issues, and acquisition opportunities.

A Note on Link Quality

Not all backlinks help. Links from spammy, low-quality, or irrelevant sites at best do nothing and at worst can trigger a manual review from Google. This is especially relevant if you are working in a competitive vertical where competitors may be using aggressive link tactics. In my experience, a modest number of high-quality, relevant links consistently outperforms a large volume of low-quality ones. Quantity is a poor proxy for quality in link building.

Putting Both to Work

Citations and backlinks are both necessary for a complete local search presence. They are not competing strategies — they operate in different layers of the algorithm and serve different functions. Build the citation foundation first, maintain it for accuracy over time, and pursue backlinks as an ongoing effort that compounds with the rest of your local SEO work. The full strategy for how these elements fit together is covered on the local SEO services page, including how Google Maps ranking factors into the overall picture.