This guide is for users on a Track, Manage, or Grow plan. If you are on a Single Business, Multi Business, or SEO Pro plan, please refer to the corresponding guide: How do I create a Citation Builder campaign?
Please note: If this is your first campaign, you'll need to set up a Location before going any further — discover how to do this here.
1. Initial setup
There are two ways to create a new Citation Builder campaign.
Click on 'Citation Builder' in the top menu (shown below within the red box) to open the Citation Builder overview page, which will display a list of all existing campaigns.
Next, click the green ‘New Campaign’ button (indicated below by the red box on the right) to set up a new campaign.
Alternatively, you can start creating a campaign from inside a Location Dashboard, provided that the Location does not yet have a campaign set up.
Just click on 'Citation Builder' under 'Citations' from the sidebar (shown below in the red box) to begin the process.
2. Campaign Setup: Step 1
The following three-step process will allow you to create a Citation Builder campaign:
a. Campaign Details
If you're creating a new campaign from the Citation Builder Overview page, select your Location from the dropdown menu, then click 'Done! Go to step 2'. If the Location you need isn't listed yet, select 'Create New Location' and complete the setup before returning here.
If, however, you're setting up a campaign for an existing Location (from within the Location Dashboard), this information will already be populated for you.
BrightLocal will then begin finding your business' existing listings across thousands of citation sites.
3. Build Your Campaign: Step 2
Once the filtering process is complete, it's time to set up your campaign.
a. Hiding Your Address
If you are a service-area business and would like to hide your address, turn on the toggle 'Don't show address publicly'.
Then select the type and quantity of submissions needed for your campaign.
b. Sync and Publish
Adding aggregators/networks to your order is a powerful way of ensuring your listings are pushed out to the wider local search ecosystem, as well the specific directories that you select. Discover more about aggregators/networks here.
It's possible to order just aggregators/networks or a combination of both aggregators/networks and manual submissions. Aggregators/networks are priced at $30 each, and a 20% discount is offered if five are purchased together in a bundle.
c. Manual Submissions
Select the number of submissions you need from the dropdown menu — you can select package sizes of: 10, 15, 25, 30, 50, 75 or 100. The number of available, new listings will vary depending on the business category, location, and the number of correct listings that already exist. So if 50 is the maximum number of citations available, that reflects the number of relevant citations that we have in our database for this particular business.
d. Duplicate Removals
You can also request duplicate removal on the citation sites that you select for the campaign. Simply ensure that ‘Remove Harmful Duplicate Listings’ is selected, and our submissions team will then know to conduct a thorough search to identify and remove any possible duplicates. Whilst we will take all possible action to remove duplicates, we're often reliant on the site editors to complete the removal. Therefore, we can’t provide a 100% guarantee that all duplicates will be removed by the end of the campaign.
e. Existing Citations
This section will show you the existing business citations that our tool has identified automatically.
When the business details are incorrect, the text is highlighted in red. If you believe that a specific citation has been identified incorrectly or has no connection to the business, you can easily move it to the ‘Available New Citations’ section by clicking the ‘X’ button on the right-hand side of the citation.
In some instances, we are unable to update the existing listing on the citation sites; for example, when the edits or updates are a paid feature. You won't be able to select these for the campaign and they will display an exclamation mark rather than a checkbox. To find out the specific issue involved, hover over this triangle and a corresponding message will be displayed.
f. Available New Citations
This section shows a variety of citations where the business is not yet listed and displays the following information:
- The directory’s URL
- Its type (whether it's a niche or a general directory)
- Domain authority
- Citation value
- A notes section
The different symbols visible within the notes section provide more detailed citation information — whether it requires phone verification, allows you to add photos, if it's part of the Yext network, etc. Hovering above each symbol will let you see a more detailed description.
If you click the ‘Filter’ button on the top right (shown above within the red box), it will display the available filter options. Select the ones you require, and then you'll see the list of citations that exclude, for example, sites that are in the Yext network or sites that require phone verification.
g. Express Campaign Upgrade
Here you can select if you would like for your manual citation submissions to be completed as standard within 7 days, or upgrade to express submissions to be completed within 24 hours.
Upgrading to express submissions will add a 20% fee to the manual submission cost.
For more information on Citation Builder Express, please see: What is Citation Builder Express?
h. Campaign Order Summary and Payment Method
Review the campaign order summary to confirm you're happy with your selections and choose your payment method:
- Card: Pay directly using a credit or debit card.
- Credits: Citation Builder credits are a cost-effective way to pay for campaigns. If you plan to order multiple campaigns across your locations, credits are ideal as they're available in packages.
Clicking on the ‘Buy More Credits’ button will open a popup window that allows you to purchase one of our credit packages:
i. Terms & Conditions
This section contains our T&Cs, which you must accept before proceeding any further:
Once you've accepted the terms and conditions, click 'Continue to Payment'.
If you are not yet ready to purchase the campaign, you can select 'Save For Later' and come back to it at another time.
The saved campaign will be then stored in the Citation Builder section of your dashboard:
j. Payment
If you selected to pay with card, you will be taken to the billing page. Complete the steps using your preferred payment method.
If you selected to pay with credits, the required number of credits will automatically be deducted from your existing balance.
4. Campaign Setup: Step 3
Step 3 allows you to add any additional content to your Citation Builder campaign.
At the very top, you'll see the Location and campaign name.
a. Business Details
The next section contains business information.
Business Location Info: This will be automatically pre-populated with data entered in Step 1, as well as in the ‘Location Manager’ section of the dashboard. You just need to check the existing information and add any details that might be missing.
Business Location Contact Info: Here, you need to add the information that potential customers can use to contact the business directly. While most of this data is optional, it will still be published on the citations that were selected for the campaign.
- Contact email: This may appear as a required field if a contact email is required for one or more of the selected directories in Step 2. Some directories may also require the contact email to match the same domain as the website URL provided. If your email does not match your website domain and is required for one or more of the selected directories, please go back to step 2 and deselect the flagged directory.
- Mobile telephone number: Only enter a mobile number in this section if it is different from the 'Business telephone number' in the section above.
b. About the Business
This section contains additional content published across your chosen directories. Business category and description are mandatory fields.
Note that business category is pulled from Location Manager, so any changes to it need to be made there.
Extra business categories and list of services/products can also be added if applicable.
c. Opening Hours
The opening hours supplied for the business can be entered here.
For each day, you can select:
- Open and input the opening hours.
- Closed if the business does not open on that day.
- 24hrs if the business is open the whole day.
- Split if there is a gap in the opening hours that day.
If the opening hours for the business are the same every day, you can select ‘apply to all’.
Please note: When inputting opening hours, use working-hour formats such as ‘14:45’ or ‘2:45 pm’.
d. Payment Methods Accepted
Here, you can select the payment methods the business accepts.
e. Social Media Links
You can also provide links to your social media pages, which we can publish on the listings for you, enabling potential customers to see more content about your business.
f. Additional Data
Some directories may require additional data such as a reference number. This will be indicated within the notes section for any applicable directory in step 2 of the campaign setup, and this generally only applies to ‘niche directories’ that are specific to a business category.
If you do not have this additional data, please exclude the flagged directories from your selection in step 2 of the campaign setup.
Alternatively, input a placeholder such as ‘ABCD12345’ and leave a note for our team in the Campaign Notes section letting us know that you don’t have these details. Our team will then replace any citations that require the missing addtional data with a different directory of closest value.
g. Business Images
A logo and selection of images can be added here, which will then be published on citation sites. We recommend taking advantage of this option, as it will definitely make your listing look more complete.
Images can either be uploaded as files (maximum size: 2MB) or in URL format. Please ensure that any files added are not too small.
Images can only be added through the Location Manager. To add them, click on 'Edit in Location Manager' and follow these instructions.
h. Campaign Notes
This field allows you to leave a comment or instruction about the campaign to our submissions team. For example, you can use this section to provide login details for your existing listings, any special instructions, or additional information that is relevant to this campaign and can be helpful. Rest assured that we will closely follow your instructions here.
As this is a required field, simply enter 'NA' if you don't have any special instructions for us.
i. Receive Email Alerts
In this section, you can add your email address so that we can send you a reminder when the campaign has been completed. If you don’t want to receive email notifications, simply select ‘No.’
Once you have completed this page, select 'confirm' to complete your campaign set up.
j. Order Confirmation
You’ll see an order confirmation, and information regarding the timeline of the campaign.
If you’d like to start a new campaign right away, just click “start another campaign”. Or you can click “view report” where you can track the progress of your order.
You can also find your campaign on your Citation Builder overview page.
If you agree to receive email notifications at Step 3, we will send you an email to keep you updated about:
- When the submission stage has been completed
- When the whole campaign has finished
That's it! You're ready to create Citation Builder campaigns.
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