Five Touchpoints and One NAP

Many people consider the user journey and brand experience to start when the user makes the first inquiry by phone or email, or spends significant time on a company’s website.

However, the journey begins a lot sooner.

However, having a consistent NAP is also important to the user journey, as online directories and social bookmarking sites aren’t just used by Google – they’re used by humans, too. NAP Consistency refers to the accuracy of a location-based business’s Name, Address, and Phone number across all business listings, local directories, social media profiles, and websites. It is widely considered a search ranking factor for local SEO. Don’t forget about your homepage URL as well as this is the most important element to keep consistent.

Maintaining a high level of consistency and accuracy reduces the risk of mistakes being made by search engines mechanically processing the data. It also reduces the risk of user friction should a potential customer trying to contact your business come across an incorrect phone number, store hours, or email address.

And, if Google comes across five different versions of your store hours, which one are they to believe?

Conflicting information can erode Google’s trust in your location’s data, which doesn’t equate to your listing being considered the best result for a relevant query.

NAP consistency should be seen as a foundational local search engine optimization strategy. It’s really just common sense marketing. Think of it as “table stakes,” or the minimum requirements to play in the local search game. If you don’t have any citations or they are inconsistent across the web, it’s the first place to start.

Any mention of a business’s name and contact information on the Internet is a local citation. Moz’s 2018 Local Search Ranking Factors established “Citation Signals” as the #5 general “Local Pack Ranking Factor.” These include sites like directories, chamber of commerce mentions, social media and other business association pages that list business information. Citations do not necessarily have to link back to your site to provide search engines with positive signals regarding your business. Consistent data across your business listings is a crucial signal to Google and Bing that your business is legitimate.

Handling Inconsistent NAP

From experience, inconsistent NAP can be caused by a number of human errors and business changes. Keeping track of where key business information is listed and how accurate it is can be a difficult job even for a single location.

This job is also changing, now that Google wants business owners to manage their Google Business Profile (GBP) from the Google Maps interfaceand larger multi-location businesses from the Business Profile Manager.

For guidance, assistance and full management of your GBP and organic SEO, give me a call or send a request via the contact page on this website.