As a local business owner, you know how critical it is to rank well in local search results. When potential customers in your area search for the products or services you offer, you want to appear at the top of the list. But did you know that your business‘s NAP consistency is one of the most important ranking factors for local SEO?
NAP stands for Name, Address, and Phone Number – the key pieces of information that tell people how to find and contact your business. Search engines like Google use your NAP data to verify your business and determine your location. Consistent NAP information across all your online listings and citations helps prove to Google that your business is legitimate, established, and trustworthy.
On the flip side, inconsistent NAP details can hurt your local rankings. If Google finds conflicting information about your business name, address, or phone number online, it may lose trust in your business and push you further down in local search results. Inconsistent listings are also frustrating for potential customers trying to contact you.
The bottom line? NAP consistency isn‘t just an SEO best practice – it‘s an absolute must for any local business that wants to get found online. Here are 9 actionable tips to help you nail your NAP consistency and dominate the local SERPs:
1. Audit Your NAP Consistency
The first step to improving your NAP consistency is figuring out where you currently stand. Conduct a thorough audit of all the places your business is listed online, including:
- Google My Business listing
- Bing Places listing
- Apple Maps listing
- Facebook business page
- Yelp listing
- Other online business directories (e.g. Better Business Bureau, Yellowpages, Foursquare, etc.)
- Local citations (e.g. Chamber of Commerce website, local newspaper sites, etc.)
- Your own website
For each listing, check that your business name, address, and phone number are accurate and formatted consistently. Even small discrepancies like "St." vs "Street" or "(555) 123-4567" vs "555-123-4567" can trip up Google and hurt your rankings.
There are many local listing management tools that can help automate the process of tracking down your listings and analyzing your NAP consistency, such as Moz Local, Yext, BrightLocal, and Whitespark. However, it‘s still a good idea to manually check your most important listings to ensure accuracy.
2. Standardize Your NAP Format
Once you‘ve identified all your listings, decide on a standard format for your NAP that you‘ll use consistently everywhere. This means choosing one version of your business name (e.g. "Bob‘s Pizza Shop" vs "Bob‘s Pizza"), one format for your address (e.g. "123 Main St." vs "123 Main Street"), and one format for your phone number (e.g. "(555) 123-4567" vs "555-123-4567").
The specific format you choose is less important than picking one and sticking to it. That said, here are a few NAP formatting best practices to consider:
- Use your legal business name, not nicknames or abbreviations
- Use a local phone number instead of a call tracking number or toll-free number when possible
- Use the full area code for your phone number, even if you primarily serve a local market
- If you have a suite number, decide whether to include it with your address or not (e.g. "123 Main St." vs "123 Main St. Suite 100")
- Avoid using special characters like %, &, or ★ unless they are part of your legal business name
When in doubt, look at how your NAP appears on legal documents like your business license, tax forms, utility bills, etc. Aim to match that format as closely as possible.
3. Update Your Website
Make sure your NAP appears on your website exactly as you want it to appear everywhere else online. Ideally, include your full NAP in the header or footer of your site so that it shows up on every page. You may also want to list your NAP on your "Contact Us" page along with a contact form or email address.
In addition to making sure your NAP is correct and consistent, follow these other on-site local SEO best practices:
- Include your city/region and a brief description of your business in title tags, meta descriptions, header tags, and page content where relevant
- Embed a Google Map showing your business location on your Contact Us page
- Add relevant schema markup to your NAP and other key information to help search engines parse the data
- Make sure your site is mobile-friendly, loads quickly, and is easy to navigate so visitors can find your NAP info
4. Correct Inaccurate Citations
For any listings you found during your audit with inaccurate or incomplete NAP info, reach out to the directory or site owner to get the listing corrected. Most reputable directories will have a process allowing you to claim your listing and edit the details yourself, or to suggest an edit if you don‘t control the listing.
Be persistent in tracking down and fixing inaccurate NAP info. Even listings on obscure directories you‘ve never heard of can impact your local SEO. Think of it as digital housekeeping – the cleaner and more consistent your NAP is everywhere it appears online, the better you‘ll perform in local searches.
5. Build New Accurate Citations
In addition to cleaning up your existing listings, look for opportunities to build new citations with your accurate, standardized NAP format. Focus on authoritative national directories like Google My Business, Bing Places, Apple Maps, Yelp, and Facebook, as well as popular local directories or niche directories relevant to your industry.
Building citations on high-quality directories not only improves your local search rankings, but also makes it easier for potential customers to discover your business. Many consumers use sites like Google Maps, Yelp, and Facebook to find and compare local businesses, so being accurately listed on those sites is a must.
6. Keep Your NAP Consistent Over Time
NAP consistency isn‘t a one-and-done deal. As your business grows and evolves, you may change your business name, move to a new location, or get a new phone number. That‘s totally normal – but it‘s critical to update your NAP across all your listings as soon as possible when you make a change.
The longer you wait to update your information, the more likely it is that inconsistencies will pop up and start chipping away at your local search rankings. Make a list of everywhere your NAP appears online as well as offline (e.g. business cards, print ads, billboards, etc.) Anytime your information changes, systematically work through the list to keep your NAP standardized.
7. Ask Customers to Update Inaccurate Reviews
Don‘t forget about your customers in all this! If you have reviews on sites like Google, Yelp, or Facebook that mention an old address or phone number, reach out to the customer and kindly ask them to update their review with your new information. Most customers will be happy to help if you explain that the inaccurate info could mislead future customers.
Of course, this requires keeping a close eye on all your incoming reviews (which you should be doing anyway to respond to both positive and negative feedback). Whenever you spot a review with outdated NAP info, add it to your to-do list to follow up with the customer. It‘s a little extra leg work, but it‘s worth it to maintain your hard-earned NAP consistency.
8. Avoid Using Call Tracking Numbers
Call tracking numbers are phone numbers that forward to your main business number and allow you to track which marketing campaigns are generating phone leads. They‘re a great way to measure your marketing ROI, but they can cause NAP consistency issues if you use them in your local listings.
To avoid confusing Google, only use your actual business phone number in your local listings and citations, not your call tracking numbers. You can still use tracking numbers in your marketing campaigns – just make sure they‘re not ending up in listings that are supposed to provide your real contact info. Some call tracking platforms like CallRail can swap your tracking number for your real number automatically when listings are indexed by Google to avoid NAP issues.
9. Regularly Re-Audit Your NAP
Finally, NAP consistency requires ongoing monitoring and maintenance. Even if you work hard to standardize your listings, inconsistencies and inaccuracies can crop up over time without you realizing it. That‘s why it‘s smart to re-audit your NAP on a regular basis – aim for once per quarter at minimum.
Staying on top of your NAP consistency will help protect your local search rankings and prevent pesky inconsistencies from snowballing into bigger problems down the road. Use local listing management tools to automate as much of the auditing process as you can, but also carve out time to manually check your most valuable listings on a regular basis.
The Bottom Line on NAP Consistency
Consistent, accurate NAP information is the bedrock of local SEO. By making it a priority to regularly audit, standardize, and update your business name, address, and phone number everywhere it appears online (and offline), you‘ll gradually improve your local search rankings and make it easier for customers to find you. NAP consistency requires ongoing work and vigilance, but the payoff of greater visibility and more customers is worth it.
The 9 tips outlined above will help you establish and maintain NAP consistency, but keep in mind that NAP is just one piece of the local SEO puzzle. To really supercharge your local rankings, combine NAP consistency with other proven local SEO strategies like getting more Google reviews, optimizing your Google My Business listing, building local links, and publishing localized content on your website. The more you tackle local SEO from all angles, the higher you‘ll rise in local searches.
Have more questions about NAP or local SEO? Check out the FAQs below:
NAP Consistency FAQs
Q: What does NAP stand for?
A: NAP stands for name, address, and phone number – the core pieces of information Google uses to verify a business and determine its location.
Q: Why does NAP consistency matter for local SEO?
A: Consistent NAP information across all your listings and citations helps prove to Google that your business is trustworthy and established, which can boost your local search rankings. Inconsistent NAP info, on the other hand, can hurt your credibility and rankings.
Q: What‘s the difference between a listing and a citation?
A: A local listing refers to a complete online profile of your business on sites like Google My Business, Yelp, etc. A local citation is any online mention of your business name, address, and phone number together, even if it‘s not a full listing.
Q: How can I check my NAP consistency?
A: Conduct an audit of everywhere your business appears online and check each listing to make sure your NAP is accurate and consistent. You can speed up the process by using a local listing management tool.
Q: Can I have multiple phone numbers or locations in my NAP?
A: Using multiple phone numbers or addresses can cause NAP consistency issues if you‘re not careful. If you have multiple locations, create a separate listing/citation for each one with a unique phone number and address. Avoid using call tracking numbers in your NAP.
Q: How often do I need to check my NAP consistency?
A: It‘s a good idea to re-audit your NAP consistency at least once per quarter and anytime your business name, address, or phone number changes. The more regularly you monitor your NAP, the better you can nip consistency issues in the bud.
Q: Do I need to worry about NAP consistency on non-local sites?
A: While local listings/citations tend to carry the most weight for NAP, it‘s still a good idea to keep your NAP consistent everywhere it appears online, even on non-local sites. Don‘t stress as much about updating these secondary listings, but definitely prioritize any listing where local customers might find you.
