Home - Google my business - What is NAP? 5 Effective Strategies to Boost Local SEO
Today, Google is full of “near me searches” and the most deserving businesses like yours are still missing out. Do you know the reason behind this gap?
Clearly, this is another trick of Nap SEO. Search engine optimization often comes as an umbrella, and its various elements boost every possible type of search on search engines.
This time, it is about Local SEO. Imagine someone living 10 minutes away from your bakery, and searches for “best bakeries near me”, but Google or any search engine doesn’t show your name in the list. Doesn’t it sound too frustrating, as a business owner?
If yes, then you are at the right place. Read the whole blog and get the secrets revealed of how to get your name out there when a localite wants to consume, what you serve wholeheartedly.
Let’s delve deeper and understand what is NAP in SEO, how is it related to local SEO, and how to infuse it into your business. Stay tuned!
To be precise,
NAP stands for-
N- Name of your business
A- Address of your business
P- Phone number of your business
However, you need to ensure that these three pieces of information are not the only things you have to inculcate, they also include additional information such as email address, photos of your physical showroom, website URL, location, etc. Simply, putting all the information online in the form of a directory is called NAP SEO.
Another thing that pops up in the discussion is that to let your business flaunt itself in users’ search engines, it is important to create a balance between both, NAP as well as SEO. Where NAP brings focus to online directories for seamless navigation to potential customers, there comes SEO that focuses on elements like quality content, keywords, etc.
Overall, the role of NAP in SEO is crucial, as without NAP, even if the customer wants to reach up to your business willingly, they would not be able to navigate any way to contact you or knock on the door of your shop.
Nap Consistency- Nap Consistency is a practice of maintaining consistency in the NAP SEO. In simple terms, a business usually has a lot of phone numbers and category pages, but they should ensure that at every site and location same directory has been provided. Read below, to find how NAP consistency is important to Google and even other search engines:
NAP consistency also draws your attention towards accurate citations. No matter how much effort you have put in for your SEO, a small mistake in your NAP citations can let all your search engine rankings go in vain. And no sooner, you have to start from zero again.
Also, once users have invested their time, and ended up only knowing that the NAP citations are wrong, can lead to damaged goodwill and decreased customer trust.
Hence, maintaining consistency and quality in the NAP SEO can bring you to the forefront, but a little mistake can also draw all your SEO success in a matter of seconds.
Inconsistent NAP SEO is a sign of unawareness or a less responsible SEO team, even if they are not. Imagine you are on various platforms like Skype, GMB account, and other related platforms and all three platforms contain different email addresses or web page citations. This will obviously, lead to pushed-down voice-search visibility and several other damages which won’t leave your brand reputation the same.
Gradually and unfortunately, visitors will start feeling frustrated with this inconsistency. And not only users but Google itself, after analyzing such inaccuracies do not push your business to the top of voice-search results.
Did you know? 77% of consumers use Google if they are seeking local business information. And guess what, you are just a few efforts away from getting in touch with these seekers. All you have to do is put consistent NAP citations in your SEO checklist and make your business a magnet to all the localities seeking the services that you provide.
Bonus read: If you are going for organic search engine marketing, then having an expert by your side is important. They can blend their years of experience into your marketing journey and guide you about important aspects like Local SEO, the role of NAP in SEO, Google map SEO services, accurate NAP citations as well as how to rank better through local SEO. One such guide to your SEO journey can be W3era.
NAP SEO has always been the backbone of the business for getting better voice search and local engine visibility. It contains the power to quickly push the customers to enter the funnel. Hence, it can be counted as a reliable source to gain a great volume of referral traffic for businesses. Also, as per the Google algorithms, it is proved that the level of consistency you can achieve from your efforts of putting citations to your business profile is directly proportionate to the consumer’s trust and reliability.
So, these were the top 4 reasons to maintain NAP consistency. Now that you know about it, let’s take steps forward and get to know about the best practices for NAP that can boost your business.
The significance of NAP in local SEO can be understood through the fact that 96% of the local users get to know about the business near them through Google. But a fact that remains unrevealed is to leverage NAP and local SEO, you need to be mindful and follow the following practices before making your SEO efforts go live.
One of the basic practices that every Nap SEO enthusiast must follow is to keep NAP consistency across all the platforms. As discussed earlier, NAP consistency brings a sense of trust to the customer’s perspective of your business. Hence, you must ensure that all your profiles contain the same NAP citations.
For example, if you are using your company’s name as ‘Kevin Bakery and Co.’, then it must be the same for all the other platforms too. You can not mold it into ‘Kevin Bakery’ or something unidentical. This behavior can confuse your potential customers and compel the algorithms to skip you.
Before you start incorporating your NAP citations, it is important to check the pre-existing information out there. Here is a tiny guide that can help you audit effectively:
Step 1: Initiate the auditing:
Audit your online presence thoroughly and find out the platforms where all your NAP citations are placed. This will make it easy for you to identify inconsistencies or inaccuracies.
Step 2: Search deeply:
Search all those NAP keywords that your business has used in the past so that they can pop up if are still being used.
Step 3: Observe inconsistencies:
Highlight if you detect any inconsistency or inaccuracy in your previous NAP listings to your SEO team.
Step 4: Improvise:
Start improvising all your mistakes by replacing them with current and relevant NAP listings. If you struggle to do so, you can take the help of outsourcing agencies that can help you to optimise your local SEO or various resources available on the internet like Semrush, Moz, Yext, etc.
Image Source- LinkedIn
After improving your exciting NAP SEO citations, the very first platform you have to put your hands on is Google My Business. Set up your GMB profile with Nap SEO-friendly descriptions and NAP citations. Doing so brings in an opportunity for you to rank on relevant Google searches.
When it comes to local searches users perform, having a GMB account can prove itself as a really useful asset. Also, one thing to make sure of is that your profile must include appropriate listings, otherwise, it can get suspended by Google.
One thing you must ensure is to keep an eye on all your listings regularly. It might be possible that your business might go under minor changes, hence you have to ensure all the changes are updated on every platform.
Otherwise, later it will become more complex and time-consuming to change all the listings altogether. Hence, maintaining it regularly becomes crucial for both ends.
If your business consists of multiple locations, then this practice is for you. Holding multiple locations can be a bit tedious for you, as it requires more attention and effort than having a single location. But if you see, having a single or multiple locations doesn’t bring a huge distance in both processes. Let’s understand how:\
Independent Audits: Audit each of your location’s NAP listings independently.
Transparent Listings: Maintain independent, consistent listings for each location. Also, ensure following the same format for all of your listings, (e.g., “Co.” for “Company”).
Regular Updates: Update NAP details regularly.
Optimize Google My Business account: Craft separate listings for every location with accurate and relevant details.
Directory & Social Media: Ensure up-to-date listings on directories and social media platforms.
Employee Training: Educate staff about the significance of accurate NAP citations.
“The best SEO is to focus on customers.”
No matter what your business is and how much you are investing in its marketing, if it’s not reaching the customers who want to use your products/services and are accessible to your physical store, it’s of no use.
To prevent it from happening, ensure you utilize NAP SEO in your SEO process. Being an asset for local SEO, it ensures that your business does not only rank in “near me searches” but also excels in bringing the customers into trust.
Hence, leverage NAP SEO by ensuring consistency and accuracy in your citations and follow the best practices provided in this blog.
Yes, it is. Having a synchronized NAP listing can help you to boost your geo-targeted search rankings. NAP is undoubtedly a great SEO factor to boost local reach.
Although, it depends on the niche of your business. But generally, a business having around 80 citation names has a higher possibility of ranking on local searches.
NAP errors is a less technical terminology that refers to inconsistent or inaccurate NAP listings.
No, both are not related to each other. Where NAP privacy is related to Network Access Protection, NAP SEO is related to providing NAP (Name, Address, Phone number of business) to the business profile for better local search visibility.
Daily Search Marketing tidbits for savvy pros.
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