How Local Businesses Can Boost Visibility and Website Traffic With NAP Consistency | Complete Guide to Optimizing Listings and Strengthening Local SEO Rankings With NAP Consistency

As a local business owner, you have a lot on your plate. From managing daily operations to executing marketing campaigns and more, it’s easy for small but important details to fall through the cracks.

One of these details that is often overlooked is the consistency of your name, address, and phone number (NAP) information. This information is crucial for your online visibility, especially on Google, which has become one of the most important tools for establishing your digital presence.

While many business owners underestimate its importance, others may be unaware of the mistakes they’re making that harm their visibility and cause them to lose potential customers. In this article, we’ll explain how NAP consistency impacts your business and discuss strategies to optimize it in your favor.

Why is NAP Consistency Important?

On the surface, it’s easy to understand why your NAP information is important. It’s how people find your business online, know where it’s located, and learn how to contact you. It seems fairly simple and straightforward, so how could this be such a significant issue for many businesses?

The problem is that several key elements are often misunderstood. Inconsistencies and inaccuracies not only affect a potential customer’s ability to find your business, but also impact how easily search engines and directories can display your information.

When your NAP details are entered incorrectly or inconsistently across listings and citations like Google, Facebook, and others, your online presence suffers. These efforts to appear across the web are wasted, costing you time, money, and customers.

This happens because websites use NAP information to verify your business’s legitimacy. Inconsistencies make you appear unreliable, leading to lower local search rankings and decreased visibility.

In fact, according to KaeRae Marketing, local businesses with consistent NAP information receive 23% more website clicks from Google than those with inconsistencies.

Inaccuracies are also detrimental to the user experience. A study by BrightLocal, which surveyed 1,000 U.S. consumers, revealed that “68% of consumers would stop using a local business if they found incorrect information in online directories.”

Needless to say, NAP consistency is critical for every business and should be taken seriously. If not, you risk costly consequences.

Causes of Inconsistent NAP

If you’re still wondering how consistent NAP information can be difficult for some local business owners to maintain, here are some common reasons this issue exists:

Changing Business Name: Even the slightest change to your business’s name can lead to inconsistent NAP information across the internet. Something as small as adding “LLC” to the end of the name or shortening the name by removing a word can confuse search engines and listings sites if it’s not immediately updated on your business profiles.

Differing Addresses: Some business owners register their business under a different address or use a P.O. Box instead of their storefront. Listings and citation sites are more likely to pull an incorrect address when this is the case.

Formatting Across Multiple Locations: Even if your NAP information is correct, owning multiple locations can complicate things. Inconsistent formatting, such as differences in abbreviations or punctuation, may cause listing sites to view them as separate entities rather than branches of the same business.

Outdated Directory Listings: Many local businesses don’t realize that third-party sites scrape the internet for business details. Unfortunately, they often pull inaccurate information, which then spreads across the web as new listings and citations are created.

Phone Number Variations: Although dialing 1-555-555-5555 or 555-555-5555 reaches the same line, even minor variations like adding a “1” at the front can confuse search engines and send conflicting signals, hurting your ability to rank higher.

Other causes may also exist, which is why it’s essential to check your listings regularly and make corrections whenever necessary.

How To Achieve Consistent NAP

Knowing the effects of inconsistent NAP information is helpful, but it’s useless without understanding how to achieve consistency. To get your listings and citations on the right track, follow these three steps:

1. Standardize NAP formatting

This first step is the most important and contains several elements. Standardizing the format of your NAP information will greatly improve consistency across all listings and citations, making it easier for Google and other search engines to recognize and rank your business.

Start with a standardized business name. For example, at Best Version Media, we always use the full name across all entries. While abbreviations like BVM may be used in other contexts, they should never be applied to listings pages. Similarly, adding industry tags or location details in parentheses is discouraged, as these practices often introduce inconsistencies.

Next, decide on a single address format, especially if you have multiple addresses for one location. Although there are many valid ways to display an address, choose one consistent style before creating business profiles.

For example, if you choose to abbreviate “Street” to “St.” or “Suite” to “Ste.”, ensure you take note of that and apply it across the board. To make it simple, many local business owners follow the formatting that their local post office uses.

Finally, ensure your phone number avoids even slight inconsistencies. A difference as small as parenthesizing the area code or adding the country code, as mentioned above, can hurt your readability for search engines and directories. 

Some businesses also have multiple phone numbers they use for different purposes, such as contacting the sales team, a customer service representative, or the front desk. Pick your best option and stick to it across all platforms.

2. Audit Existing NAP Citations

If you’ve already created business listings on sites like Google and Facebook, review them carefully. Update any inconsistencies right away, as this is one of the easiest ways to improve local SEO.

Be aware that there may also be listings for your business you didn’t create. Less popular search engines like Bing, industry-specific directories, and business databases often generate profiles automatically. Finding these and correcting any errors is just as critical as managing your primary listings.

3. Claim, Update, and Monitor Business Listings

If you find existing business profiles that you don’t control, claim them and update the information. Some of the most impactful platforms, beyond Google and Facebook, include Apple Maps, Yelp for Business, and local Chamber of Commerce directories.

Even after you’ve corrected your listings, the work isn’t done. Third-party websites frequently update or revise business details without notifying you, so monitoring your profiles regularly is essential to maintaining accuracy.

Best Version Media Makes It Easy

As a local business owner, your days are already busy enough. Let Best Version Media make it easier for you to manage your business profiles with listings, reviews, and reputation management, all from one simple dashboard.

Complete your marketing strategy by utilizing BVM’s bundled, geo-targeted social media and display ad campaigns that maximize your budget and attract the right customers for your business.

To get started, get in touch with BVM now and watch your business grow.

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FAQ: NAP Consistency for Local Businesses

What is NAP consistency?

NAP consistency is when a business’s Name, Address, and Phone number are identical across all online platforms where they are listed, such as social media, local directories, and their own website.

Why is NAP consistency important?

NAP (Name, Address, Phone number) consistency is important because it builds trust with search engines and customers, improves local search rankings, and provides a better user experience by making your business information easy to find and verify across various online platforms. Inconsistent or inaccurate NAP data confuses search engines, can lead to lower local search rankings, and frustrates potential customers who can’t find reliable contact details.