The Importance of Consistent NAP Information in Local Listings

Name, Address, and Phone Number (NAP) information consistency across a business’s Google Business Profile, local citations, review site profiles, and social media is incredibly important. It helps win favors with local search and local pack algorithms.

NAP inconsistencies, on the other hand, make your customers’ user journey more aggravating. Consequently, customers lose faith in your brand’s reputation.

Think of the impact on your business’s bottom line if a buyer who wants to buy from your business can’t locate you or get in touch with you. Or worse, they find multiple phone numbers and addresses but don’t even know which one is correct.

In a time where business transactions are all about speed and convenience, there’s no faster way to tell your customers you don’t care about their time than not bothering to update very basic information about your business across all the channels that you use to obtain visibility online.

Source: Moz

If you have struggled to allocate resources to correcting NAP information across your digital assets for whatever reason — take this as a sign to make that a priority.

In this blog post, we will tell you how a consistent NAP benefits your business, provide tips on selecting the most accurate address, and how to maintain consistent NAP.

What Are the Benefits of Consistent NAP?

Consistency and accuracy reduce the risk of search engines making mistakes when mechanically processing the data. This helps to reduce the likelihood of your company making a bad first impression on potential customers during the early stages of their user experience.

If their first touchpoint with your brand is frustrating, you create friction, which can be easily avoided.

Here are some of the key benefits of having consistent NAP information for your local business:

Benefit 1: Improves Local Search Rankings

Consistent NAP information allows search engines to semantically tie all of the listings and profiles together to the same business entity. This helps your business rank higher in ‘Near Me’ searches, and other query modifiers. This is especially important if your business name contains common words in the business name.

The higher your business ranks in local search results, the more likely it is to be discovered by potential customers in your area. In other words, consistent NAP information helps enhance your business’s online presence. It builds a solid foundation for local SEO success.

Benefit 2: Boosts Voice Search Visibility

Voice searches tend to be more conversational and introduce additional language in the query that the search engine needs to understand and figure out how that relates to your business.

Users may ask complete questions or use longer phrases, which may include other local information. For example:

• “Where is the nearest coffee shop?”
• “Find a plumber near me.”
• “Where’s the vet in {neighborhood}”

When the NAP information is accurate, consistent, and updated as per voice search queries — you increase the relevance of your business to the user’s query. The chances of the search engine serving your business information to the customers turn higher.

In these cases, accuracy of the address is important, as the customer may not be looking at a screen to verify the physical location. If they request driving directions and start on their journey, they need to go to the right place.

Benefit 3: Serves as the Starting Point of the Customer Journey

When customers find your business listed with up-to-date and consistent details, they know they can rely on the provided information to contact you, locate your physical store, or visit your website for more information.

Next, they encounter other touchpoints like your website, social media profiles, and online reviews. Consistency in NAP information across these touchpoints reinforces their trust in your business. It signals professionalism and a customer-centric approach, enhancing their overall experience.

If you have a business where visiting customers have a sense of urgency, for example you may be providing medical care services like an urgent care or vet, or you may be offering building or contractor supplies, where customers need to get in and out quickly, ensuring your NAP and location information is accurate and consistent across platforms is even more critical.

The customer journey is a series of interconnected touchpoints. Accurate and consistent NAP information at each touchpoint strengthens the customer’s perception of your business and increases the likelihood of conversion.

Benefit 4: Builds Customer Trust

If a customer had a positive first experience with your business and wants to engage with you again, then having consistent NAP information makes it easier for them to contact you, or leave a positive review.

An accurate and consistent NAP makes it convenient for them to repeatedly engage with you. It helps build and reinforce their trust in your company’s location and online presence.

Benefit 5: Continually Strengthens Business Credibility

Satisfied customers often become advocates for your business by sharing positive reviews on online platforms. Some of them may mention your business’ NAP to provide context or elaborate on their experience.

Potential new customers who read these reviews may feel encouraged to connect with you. When the NAP information in the reviews matches with that in your online listings (including social media), it reinforces your business’ credibility.

Tips for Accurate Address Information

When setting up your address you need to make sure it’s accurate in the following ways:

• The street address naming convention you use is common and recognized by Google Maps. If your street has multiple names, which may include an old, or colloquial street name, make sure you search for them and use the one that is recognized by Google Maps.
• While Google and other platforms take location and address data from a variety of sources, there are times where it can be inconsistent or ambiguous. This is especially true for new neighborhoods and new construction, where there may not yet be any publicly available data for them to cross reference and understand the exact location.
• If your business is located in a unit or suite, this can also cause location problems and often send people to the wrong side of a building.
• The city name is less prone to being incorrect, so there are usually less issues with this being inaccurate.
• The latitude and longitude are the next critical items to augment your NAP info. In Google Business Profiles, you can do this by moving the map pin to the correct location. In other platforms you can enter the longitude and latitude. This is essential for businesses located in a strip mall, office building, or a new construction to ensure people go to the right entrance.

Sometimes in smaller industrial estates, the local signage may be missing or not clearly visible, so if someone initially goes to the wrong side of the building their first interaction with you is likely going to be something about how they had trouble finding you – I’m sure you’d much prefer their first words to be about how excited they are to buy your products or services!

Tips for Maintaining NAP Consistency

To ensure that your business information remains consistent and up to date, consider the following tips:

• Regularly Audit Your Listings

Monitor and update any discrepancies or outdated business information across various platforms — search engines, directories, social media profiles, and review sites.

This effort will help boost your online visibility and help drive more traffic to your website or physical store.

• Use a Centralized Database

Maintain a centralized database or spreadsheet that contains your business’s accurate NAP information.

It serves as your reference point for updating listings across different platforms. Whenever there are changes to your business details, update the centralized database first and then proceed to update the listings accordingly.

Having a centralized database streamlines the process of updating listings, saves time and effort, and does away with the risk of errors during updates.

• Monitor Online Reviews

Sometimes, customers may mention incorrect or outdated NAP information in their reviews. In such instances, request them to update the information. Additionally, respond to reviews promptly. Address any concerns and provide accurate contact details if needed. This may also be a clue that your company name is published somewhere online with a typo or not using the correct language. So you can search for that misspelling and reach out to try and get those mentions corrected.

Such proactiveness ensures that potential new customers are presented with accurate and consistent information about your business. It also demonstrates your commitment to excellent customer service.

• Be Mindful of Rebranding or Relocation

If your business undergoes rebranding or relocates to a new address, ensure that the changes are reflected consistently across all online platforms. Update your NAP information on your website, social media profiles, local directories, and review sites. Inform your existing customers about the changes through email newsletters and social media announcements.

If your website is also being redesigned, there are several steps you need to take to make sure you don’t lose organic traffic. Website redesign SEO services are critical at this point and need to be incorporated into the entire rebranding process.

This helps maintain a seamless customer experience and avoids confusion for both existing and potential customers.

• Leverage Citation Management Tools

Use citation management tools or services to automate the process of updating and maintaining your business listings.

The biggest benefit of using citation management tools or services is efficiency and accuracy. These tools streamline the process. Automation can save valuable time and effort that would otherwise be spent manually updating each listing individually. It can also prevent errors and inconsistencies that may arise from manual updates.

• Regularly Check for Duplicate Listings

Duplicate listings can confuse search engines and customers, leading to inconsistent information being displayed. They can also detract from the ratings and reviews that should have been posted to the correct business listing. Regularly search for duplicate listings, then merge or remove them as needed.

This helps improve NAP consistency and clarity.

• Train Staff on NAP Importance

Guide your staff on how to handle customer inquiries or requests for updated information. Make sure your team understands the significance of providing accurate NAP details when interacting with customers and ensure templated responses in use by sales and customer service teams are accurate and consistent.

When your staff understands the significance of providing accurate NAP details, they can effectively address customer inquiries, provide up-to-date information, and ensure a positive customer experience.

Maximize Your Web Presence With Vizion’s Local Listing Management Services

The ground rule of local SEO is authenticity and credibility. This means you must be as accurate as possible in your business listings.

To recap, maintaining consistent NAP information across online platforms is critical for the following reasons.

• Reduces the risk of search engine errors.
• Improves local search rankings.
• Boosts voice search visibility.
• Serves as the starting point of the customer journey.
• Builds customer trust.
• Strengthen business credibility.
• Enhances online traffic.

We outlined the key steps to achieve and maintain NAP consistency.

These include regularly auditing your listings, maintaining a centralized database, monitoring online reviews, being mindful of rebranding or relocation, leveraging citation management tools, regularly checking for duplicate listings, and training your staff on the importance of NAP information.

Understanding the importance of maintaining an accurate and consistent NAP is one thing, but taking action and managing this across multiple locations can be challenging. Leave it to the credible team at Vizion Interactive so that you can focus on your core business.

At Vizion Interactive, we have the expertise, experience, and enthusiasm to get results and keep clients happy! Learn more about how our Local Listing Management services and Franchise SEO can increase sales and boost your ROI. But don’t just take our word for it, check out what our clients have to say, along with our case studies.