I found it interesting in a recent article posted on Search Engine Land that web references for local business listings can enhance the visibility of your local business listing, especially on Google.  Many local business owners strive to get their local listing within the Google OneBox; after all, this is great exposure. The problem comes when you try and try and just can’t get there.  

Just as organic search results are ranked using a specific algorithm, so are local business listings. According to this article, one of the most important factors is web references.  

Web references are to local business listings as inbound links are to organic search results. Web references aren’t links, but they act similarly. With that, accumulating good web references for your local business listing can be very beneficial.  

The way it all works is that Google actually will crawl these web references to gather as much information as it can about all the local businesses it has in its index. Some examples of web references include local sites and internet yellow pages.  

Below are some tips from the article for web reference building: 

1. The more categories the better: If you have any type of internet yellow pages ad out there, try to put your business in two or more relevant categories. This way, Google will not only have one IYP to crawl and use as a web reference for your local business listing, they will have two or more.
2. Coupons are more than just an incentive: Google allows you to create coupons to add to your local listings. Google also crawls these coupons and considers these web references for that particular local business listing.
3. Throw a Party: If your local business is having an event or even attending an event, make sure to add this event to local event sites like Meetup and Yahoo! Upcoming. These too can be considered a quality web reference.