Just to clarify, when I talk about NAP sadly I’m not talking about a cheeky 40 winks in the office… although I do hear that there are some offices that have beds, so don’t let me stop you napping.
So what is NAP?
Well, NAP is an acrony
m for Name – Address – Phone Number and to improve your business’s chance of ranking high in the search engines, the way that these are represented needs to be consistent.
This is because Google wants to ensure that people receive the most relevant results for local searches based on where they are searching from (e.g. their geographical location).
But why is NAP consistency so important?
Well, as usual it comes down to SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). NAP consistency creates an impression of trust because the search engines can clearly validate your business from multiple places.
When you listed your business in a directory, you may not have noticed that each site requires different information and you may have entered a variation of your details each time, e.g. a slightly different name or address.
If your company is registered as Gordon’s Gardening Limited but you rarely include ‘Limited’ in any of your marketing or promotional activities, the information you have provided will be deemed unreliable, especially if you’ve used this in your contact information, or (as is quite common) in the footer, on your website.
Some of the search engines might even see Gordon’s Gardening, Gordon’s Gardening Ltd. and Gordon’s Gardening Limited as three different businesses, which could be detrimental to how you are ranked in the results. The same is true if you have moved business premise or changed your phone number since you listed your details.
So what can you do?
The first thing you should do is run a quick search for your business to see how your business is listed across the internet. It may seem time consuming to have to trawl through search results and edit your details in each individual place, but trust me it’s worth it.
There are also several online services you can subscribe to, to make things easier which will save you a significant amount of time, including our Yell Connect product.
It’s also important to set up a Google Plus page with the most accurate company information so that Google is aware of your business and can cross-reference with all other listings.
Since the Google Pigeon update, business directories are ranking much higher in the search engines, so keeping on top of NAP consistency will help your site appear more often in search results and receive more organic traffic as a result.
Our new service Yell Connect can help you achieve this, and more.
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