Increase Your Local SEO With NAP
I know a NAP always sounds good but this NAP will help your local search results. Name, Address, and Phone number or NAP is a common acronym used in the SEO world. It can have a tremendous effect on your local search results.
Why is NAP important?
Simply put any mention of your business on the web is referred to as a citation. Each citation needs to be consistent and accurate. The problem that occurs with your companies NAP is when it appears inconsistently. There are a few disadvantages that stem from an inconsistent NAP. First of all, you would think that people searching for you would be able to determine your business name, address, and phone number even with slight variations. You would be wrong. These slight variations will both confuse the detour your potential customers. Secondly, if humans that are searching are getting confused these discrepancies only amplify for search engines.
It is easy to lose sleep over bad NAPs.
If your business information has a slight variation it is entirely probable that your business will be displayed in duplicate. Many companies either purchase business listings from directories or scrape business directories and distribute this information throughout the internet for sales or what have you. One typo can quickly spread to 10 occurrences and those occurrences can then spread to 10 different occurrences. As you can see this can quickly become a problem.
What does a bad NAP look like?
A bad NAP can be a typo like stated above but more often it is a result of a slight variation of your business. Companies display multiple phone numbers, change locations, and so on. Even if you only have one location and the same phone number you can still suffer from a bad NAP.
Acme Widgets
1234 Main Street,
Hometown US 12345
555.555.5555
Acme Widgets Company
1234 Main Str,
Hometown USA 12345
(555)555-5555
Acme Widgets Co.
1234 Main Street,
Hometown United States 12345
555-555-5555
Obviously, these are all the same business but it is entirely possible to be listed in a database as three separate business. This is one time that you do not want your company name spread out.
Let’s Plan On A Good NAP.
One strategy to plan your NAP is pretty low tech. Create a document where you can determine how you want you NAP displayed. Make sure you keep this format for each and every NAP entry.
Insider tip: (Site: website name +phone number) will return google results that match. It is not all encompassing but it will give you a good start. Or you can utilize tools that scan your NAP such as:
Synup
White Spark
MOZ Local
Now that you have determined what your true NAP should look like use that document and edit any existing bad NAPs (Taking care not to create duplicate NAPs) or submit new NAPs if your business is not yet listed.
Take A Work NAP 15 Minutes A Day.
Chunk this task out to 15 minutes a day to submit or edit existing entries into these top directories.
Google My Business
Bing Places
Apple Maps
ExpressUpdate
Acxiom
Factual
LocalEze
D&B
Facebook
Yelp
Yellowpages
Yahoo! Local
Superpages
Foursquare
MapQuest
Manta
Local.com
Kudzu
Yellowbook
Citysearch
ChamberofCommerce
Merchantcircle
ShowMeLocal
BOTW
LocalStack
HotFrog
Brownbook
Cylex-USA
InsiderPages
EZLocal
eLocal
Tupalo
ForLocations
CitySquares
GetFave
2FindLocal
Nokia Here
Yasabe
Angieslist
SaleSpider
Opendi
MyLocally
MyHuckleberry
iBegin
n49
Thumbtack
MakeItLocal
B2BYellowPages
BizVotes
Tuugo
