# The 12-Directory Citation Audit Worksheet

**Businessman Talk · businessmantalk.com/seo/local/citations/ · v1.0 (June 2027)**

Paste this into Google Sheets, Excel, Docs or Notion. It takes about an hour for one location, plus the fixes. Run it once, then again 90 days later with the same twelve rows in the same order, so the two scores compare.

One worksheet covers **one location**. A business with three branches runs it three times, with three master records.

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## 1. The master record (fill this first, and never fill it in twice)

Everything below is checked against this block. Write it once, in the exact form you intend to use everywhere, and copy it from here rather than typing it again.

| Field | Your canonical value |
|---|---|
| **Business name** (exactly as it appears on the signage, and with no tagline, store code, trademark sign, or city or service keyword appended) | ______________________________ |
| **Street line 1** | ______________________________ |
| **Street line 2** (suite, unit or floor. Decide now whether it exists. It is either on every listing or on none.) | ______________________________ |
| **City / town** | ______________________________ |
| **State / county** | ______________________________ |
| **Postcode / ZIP** | ______________________________ |
| **Phone** (the local number for this location, under the direct control of the business. Not a central helpline, not a premium-rate number, not a call-tracking number that forwards elsewhere.) | ______________________________ |
| **Phone format** (pick one and keep it: `(555) 123-4567` or `555-123-4567` or `+1 555 123 4567`) | ______________________________ |
| **Website URL for this location** (the location page, not the homepage, where one exists) | ______________________________ |
| **Primary category** | ______________________________ |
| **Is this a service-area business?** (if yes, the address is hidden on the Business Profile and is not published on directory listings either) | Yes / No |

**Date of this audit:** ____ / ____ / ________  **Run by:** ______________  **Re-run due:** ____ / ____ / ________

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## 2. The five states

Score each of the twelve rows as exactly one of these. One state per row, no half marks.

| State | Definition | Scores |
|---|---|---|
| **Exact match** | Name, address and phone all match the master record character for character. | 1 |
| **Variant** | The same information, formatted differently. "St" for "Street", a different phone punctuation, "Suite 4" for "Ste 4". | 0 |
| **Wrong** | At least one field disagrees with the master record. An old address, a disconnected number, a former trading name. | 0 |
| **Missing** | No listing exists for this business in this place. | 0 |
| **Duplicate** | Two or more listings exist for this one location. Score the state as duplicate even when one of the copies is an exact match. | 0 |

**Your score is the number of exact matches out of 12.** The score exists to make you finish the sheet, not to be reported to anyone.

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## 3. The audit table (work top to bottom, in this order)

The order is fixed. Rows 1 and 2 come first because everything below is compared against them: the Business Profile is what Google shows, and your own contact page is the one listing you control absolutely. Rows 3 and 4 are the other two map providers that feed phones and cars. Rows 5 to 12 run in descending order of how often a customer actually sees them.

| # | Where | How to find your listing | What to check | State | Notes / what is wrong |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | **Google Business Profile** | Search your business name in Google while signed in as owner | Name, address (or hidden address plus service areas), phone, category, website URL | | |
| 2 | **Your own contact page** | Your site | The address block, the phone number, and whether both also appear in the site footer in the same form | | |
| 3 | **Apple Business Connect** | Search your business in Apple Maps | Name, address, phone, category | | |
| 4 | **Bing Places** | Search your business name at bing.com/maps | Name, address, phone, hours | | |
| 5 | **Facebook** | Your business Page, About tab | Name, address, phone. Check the Page is a business Page, not a personal profile | | |
| 6 | **Yelp** | Search your business name and city on Yelp | Name, address, phone, and whether an unclaimed duplicate exists | | |
| 7 | **Better Business Bureau** | bbb.org search | Name, address, phone. Old addresses persist here longer than anywhere else | | |
| 8 | **Foursquare** | foursquare.com search | Name, address, phone. This one feeds other apps, so an error here travels | | |
| 9 | **Nextdoor** | Nextdoor business search | Name, address, phone, service area | | |
| 10 | **YellowPages** | yellowpages.com search | Name, address, phone. Check for a second listing under a former name | | |
| 11 | **Your chamber of commerce or trade association** | The membership directory you are entitled to appear in | Name, address, phone, and whether the entry links to the right page | | |
| 12 | **The one industry directory your customers use** | Ask three customers where they looked before they called you | Name, address, phone | | |

**Score: ______ / 12 exact matches.**

**States found:** ____ exact · ____ variant · ____ wrong · ____ missing · ____ duplicate

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## 4. The fix queue (do them in this order)

Copy every row that is not an exact match into this table, sorted by the fix order below. The order is not arbitrary. Wrong information sends customers to the wrong place today. A duplicate splits whatever signal exists and makes every later correction ambiguous. A missing listing costs nothing until it is created. A formatting variant costs least of all, and half of them cannot be changed anyway.

1. **Wrong** first. Someone is currently being given the wrong address or a dead phone number.
2. **Duplicate** second. Merge or close the copy before you correct anything, or you will correct the wrong one.
3. **Missing** third. Create the listing, copying every field from section 1.
4. **Variant** last, and only where the field is editable.

| Priority | # | Where | State | The fix | Who | Done (date) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | | | Wrong | | | |
| 2 | | | Wrong | | | |
| 3 | | | Duplicate | | | |
| 4 | | | Duplicate | | | |
| 5 | | | Missing | | | |
| 6 | | | Missing | | | |
| 7 | | | Variant | | | |
| 8 | | | Variant | | | |

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## 5. The 90-day re-run

Repeat sections 3 and 4 with the same twelve rows, the same master record and the same five states, 90 days after the first run. Record both scores here.

| Measure | First run | 90-day re-run |
|---|---|---|
| Date | | |
| Score out of 12 | | |
| Wrong | | |
| Duplicate | | |
| Missing | | |
| Variant | | |
| Time taken (audit only) | | |
| Map-pack position for your main category, searched from your own address | | |

**What the last row can and cannot tell you.** A single business is a single business. A position that moves between two runs is one observation, not evidence that the audit caused it, and anything else on the profile that changed in those 90 days is an equally good explanation. Record it anyway, because a position that does not move is worth knowing before you spend another hour.

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*Businessman Talk publishes this worksheet under the same terms as the rest of the site: free to copy, free to use inside a business, and free to hand to a client. No account, no email address, no upsell. If you run it on a real business and are willing to have the results published with your permission, we would like to hear from you.*