What Google and AI tools want to see is that other trustworthy places online know your business exists and agree on your name, address, and phone number. Those same signals shape which businesses AI tools name when someone asks for a recommendation, so they’re a big part of AI search visibility for local businesses.
What is domain authority?
Domain authority is a score from 1 to 100 that the SEO company Moz uses to predict how well a website might rank. It’s based mostly on how many other sites link to that website and how trustworthy those sites are. Ahrefs and Semrush, two other SEO tools, have their own versions called Domain Rating and Authority Score, so a different number in a different report measures the same idea.
Google doesn’t use Moz’s score, or the ones from Ahrefs and Semrush. It uses its own measure of how much trust links pass to a site, called PageRank. Google stopped showing that number publicly in 2016, but its staff have confirmed it’s still part of how Google ranks sites.
That’s why the third-party scores are still worth watching. Moz, Ahrefs, and Semrush can’t see Google’s number, so each one estimates it from the links it can find. When your score climbs because real sites started linking to you, that’s a good sign Google’s measure is climbing too. When it climbs because someone sold you a batch of links from sites nobody visits, the tool’s number goes up while Google’s usually doesn’t. Google’s systems are designed to discount links like that.
What’s a good domain authority score?
A good score is one that’s close to or higher than the businesses you compete with for the same jobs. A roofer with a score of 18 isn’t behind if the three roofers who keep winning the jobs he wants sit at 12, 15, and 20. A national brand’s score doesn’t matter, because it isn’t competing for “roof repair near me” in your town.
To check, look up your site and your three closest competitors in Moz’s free domain authority checker, write the numbers down, and then leave them alone for six months. The score changes slowly and only goes up as more real sites link to yours.
What builds authority for a local business
Five things build the kind of authority Google and AI tools look for, and only some of them move a domain authority score.
- Citations, which are listings of your name, address, and phone number on sites other than your own.
- Reviews, and your replies to them. Google’s help page on local ranking says how well-known a business is depends partly on how many reviews it has and how many websites link to it.
- Local links from sites that already know you, like the supply house that lists its preferred contractors, the neighborhood association, or the youth team you sponsor.
- Local press, including a single mention in a community paper or a local news story about a job.
- Partnerships with businesses you already trade referrals with, like a realtor who sends you inspections, where each of you lists the other on your website.
What counts as a local citation?
A local citation is any place online that lists your business name, address, and phone number, often shortened to NAP. Google and AI tools compare these listings against each other, and the more of them agree, the more confident they are that the details are right.
The trouble is that a lot of businesses have listings that almost agree. Here’s one made-up roofing company, written three ways across the internet:
Website: Ridgeline Roofing LLC, 123 Example St., Suite 4, (555) 555-0142
Yelp: Ridgeline Roofing & Gutters, 123 Example Street #4, (555) 555-0142
Old directory: Ridgeline Roofing, 123 Example St., (555) 555-0199
A person would read those as the same company. Software comparing them has to guess whether they are, and the third one also lists an old tracking number that may not ring anywhere anymore.
Pick one version of each detail and use it everywhere, down to “Street” or “St.” Put that same version in your website footer and on your contact page. It also goes in your site’s schema markup, the code that spells out those details for search engines. If the truck, the invoices, and the website each use a slightly different name, settle on one before you fix any listings. Choosing that name and putting it on everything is usually the first step in brand development.
Where your business needs to be listed
Your Google Business Profile comes first, because it’s the listing Google owns and shows in Maps. Fill in every field, keep your hours current, and add photos from real jobs. Geotagging those photos for local SEO stores each job site’s location inside the image file. After that, set up Bing Places, which is Bing’s version of a business profile, and Apple Business Connect, which runs your Apple Maps listing. Then do Yelp, Facebook, the Better Business Bureau, and Nextdoor.
Next are the directories customers use for your trade, like Angi for home services or Healthgrades for medical practices. Your trade association or state licensing board may list you too.
Last are the data aggregators, companies that sell business listings to hundreds of smaller directories, map apps, and voice assistants. The three that matter in the U.S. are Data Axle, Foursquare, and TransUnion’s listing service, formerly Neustar Localeze. When you correct a mistake at one of them, the correction gets passed along to the directories and apps that buy their data.
A five-step citation audit
- Write down your official name, address, and phone number exactly as they should appear. Under that, list every old version: past addresses, old phone numbers, any call tracking number an ad service gave you, and any name you’ve traded under.
- Search Google for each old version in quotes, then search your business name plus your city. Note every listing that comes up.
- Check each core listing by hand, from Google Business Profile through Nextdoor, even the ones you don’t think you have. Some directories create listings on their own from aggregator data.
- Claim the listings you don’t control, which means proving to each site that you own the business, and correct them, starting with Google Business Profile and the three aggregators, so your fixes spread instead of getting overwritten.
- Remove or merge duplicates. Then set a reminder to repeat the search every six months, and any time you move or change numbers.
How long does this take?
- First month: changes to listings you’ve already claimed usually show up within days, and aggregator changes start reaching smaller directories.
- Months two and three: most of the smaller directories catch up. A few older ones need a manual fix.
- Six months and on: reviews, local links, and press add up, and you should start to see a difference in where you show up.
Paid links and listings: the right way and the wrong way
Paying for links and listings can work, and plenty of legitimate SEO includes both. What separates the right way from the wrong way is where the links and listings come from.
For listings, the right way is getting your business onto real directories people use, with the same name, address, and phone number on every one. Paying a service to handle that, including submitting to the data aggregators, is normal. The wrong way is a bulk package that drops you onto hundreds of low-quality directories nobody visits. Google’s spam policies call out links from low-quality directories as spam, and one wrong phone number in a batch like that can keep spreading for years.
For links, the right way is paying for placements that make sense for a local business. That could be sponsoring a local event or organization that lists its sponsors, or a paid feature on a site your customers already read. Google asks that a paid link be marked as sponsored in the site’s code, which keeps it within the rules. The wrong way is a package that promises a higher domain authority by a certain date without saying where the links will come from.
One mistake to avoid no matter who you pay: adding your city or a keyword to your business name on Google, like “Ridgeline Roofing St. Louis Best Roofer.” Google treats that as spam unless it’s the name on your signs and paperwork, and it can get the profile suspended.
Where to start
Start with your Google Business Profile and the audit. The same listings, reviews, and local mentions decide whether AI tools can confidently name you, which makes them the base of AI search visibility for local businesses. If you’d rather hand off the audit and the cleanup, citation work is part of Posted Social’s SEO service.