It’s important to audit your NAP (Name, Address, Phone number) because this information serves as a critical piece of data for your business’s online presence. It’s the primary way that potential customers can find and contact your business.
Inaccurate or inconsistent NAP information across your website and online directories can lead to confusion for both search engines and users, potentially harming your search engine rankings and making it difficult for customers to find and contact you.
By conducting regular NAP audits, you can ensure that your business information is accurate and consistent across all online channels, which can help boost your online visibility and credibility.
Authority & Consistency
When it comes to maintaining NAP consistency, it is important to ensure that your NAP is consistent across all the major directories and online platforms where your business is listed. However, it’s also important to choose one authoritative source for your NAP, which could be your website or your Google Business Profile. It’s essential to keep the information up-to-date and consistent across all the directories and platforms where you have a presence to avoid confusion and misinformation among potential customers.
Name Variants & Consistency
Here are some examples of variants on business names that may not be consistent:
- Using a different abbreviation or acronym: For example, using “Inc.” in one listing and “Incorporated” in another.
- Adding or omitting a descriptive term: For example, using “Joe’s Pizza” in one listing and “Joe’s Pizza and Subs” in another.
- Spelling or grammatical errors: For example, using “Jone’s Plumbing” in one listing and “Jones Plumbing” in another.
- Using a different order of words: For example, using “Plumbing Services by Jones” in one listing and “Jones Plumbing Services” in another.
Inconsistencies in business name can make it difficult for search engines to match up your listings and associate them with your business, which can negatively impact your SEO efforts. It is important to ensure that your business name is consistent across all online directories and platforms.
Business Address Variants & Consistency
Here are some examples of variants on addresses that can cause inconsistencies in NAP:
- Abbreviations: Differences in the use of abbreviations such as “St.” vs “Street,” “Ave.” vs “Avenue,” or “Rd.” vs “Road” can cause inconsistencies.
- Misspellings: Typos or errors in spelling can cause inconsistencies, such as “Maiin Street” vs “Main Street.”
- Different Capitalization: Differences in capitalization, such as “Main St.” vs “Main street,” can cause inconsistencies.
- Suite Numbers: Differences in the use of suite numbers, such as “Suite 100” vs “Ste. 100,” can cause inconsistencies.
- Postal Codes: Differences in the use of postal codes, such as “12345” vs “12-345,” can cause inconsistencies.
It’s important to ensure that all variations are identified and corrected to maintain consistency in NAP, which can impact local search engine rankings and online reputation.
Website Address Variants & Consistency
Although website URL isn’t in the NAP acronym, it’s important to Audit your website URL.
There are several examples of URL variants that can create inconsistencies and confusion for search engines and users; some of which are common mistakes and can have a huge negative impact on your SEO. Inconsistency in URLs is detailed; therefore, auditing website URLs is covered in a different blog post.
TIP to save time and effort: When your checking your NAP in a directory, go ahead and check your website URL at the same time.
TIP: Hover over the link to see the address. If you just click, you may be redirected to the right address but this still hasn’t corrected if the URL is wrong.
Ways to Audit Your NAP
Here are some ways to audit your NAP:
Google Business Profile
Check your Google Business Profile to ensure your NAP is accurate and up-to-date.
TIP: Appoint someone to regularly check accuracy – since competitors and Google can make changes to your profile which might not be accurate.
NOTE: If you haven’t claimed your business listing, be sure to do that because regularly updating your profile with posts and photos can play a significant role in booting your SEO (search engine optimization).
website
Check your website to ensure your NAP is accurate and up-to-date.
Consider including your NAP in the footer of your website to make it easily accessible to visitors. One of the reasons why people put NAP in the footer of their website is to make it easily accessible to visitors. Visitors may expect to find contact information, including the business’s name, address, and phone number, in the footer of a website, which is a common location for such information.
By putting NAP in the footer, you can make it easy for visitors to find and contact you, which can improve the user experience and potentially increase conversions.
Additionally, having accurate NAP information in your website footer can help with local SEO by indicating to search engines the physical location of your business, which can be important for showing up in local search results.
search engine queries
Conduct searches on major search engines like Google and Bing using your business name, address, and phone number. Make sure the information displayed matches the information on your website and other directories.
social media profiles
Check your social media profiles, such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, to ensure your NAP is accurate and up-to-date.
Remember to not only check your NAP but to regularly audit your Social media (services, products, photos, mentions)
local directories
Check popular local directories like Yelp, Yellow Pages, and Angie’s List to ensure your NAP is accurate and up-to-date.
It is difficult to provide an exact number of online directories as new directories are created and existing directories are updated or removed all the time. However, there are hundreds of online directories available, ranging from general directories like Yelp and Yellow Pages to industry-specific directories like HomeAdvisor and Angie’s List.
The average number of directories service companies are listed in varies depending on the company’s location, industry, and marketing strategy. A small local business may only be listed in a few directories, while a larger national company may be listed in dozens or even hundreds of directories.
It is important for you to prioritize the directories that are most relevant to your industry and location, and to ensure that your NAP information is consistent and accurate across those directories. If you do a competitive analysis, you may find directories your competition is using and may also be helpful for you.
Identify & Correct Inaccuracies in Your NAP
Ensuring that your NAP is consistent across across the web can help improve your search engine rankings and ensure that your customers can easily find accurate information about your business. Therefore, it is important to audit and maintain the accuracy of your NAP across all relevant online directories and platforms.
TIP: One good tip for keeping up with the directories your listed in is to use a local SEO tool that can track and monitor online listings across multiple directories. These tools can help identify new listings, detect changes in existing listings, and track the accuracy and consistency of NAP information across different directories.
TIP: It can also be helpful to ask customers and clients where/how they found your business and to use that information to identify and prioritize the most important directories to be listed in.
TIP: Create a google sheet with a list of directories and URL straight to your profile. That way you can save time and effort when auditing your profiles in directories. Remember to update the sheet when your profile is added to a new directory.
TIP: Another tip is to periodically search for your business name, address, and phone number on major search engines and directories to see where your company is listed and to ensure that the information is accurate and up-to-date. Some directories will automatically add your business, but the information may be outdated or inaccurate.
