Originally posted June, 2012. Modified June, 2022.
I’ve just been studying the Local Search Ranking Factors Report and am impressed by how important it is to be consistent when updating your listings on local directories to achieve good local search marketing.
The report talks about NAP – Name, Address and Phone Number – and how your listings should be consistent from one online listing to another. This includes social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and especially Google Business as well as other online directories, including local ones such as your Chamber of Commerce business directory listing.
One tool that can be helpful in achieving consistency is a document that identifies the specific attributes that you intend to use for your online listings. You’ll find that such a document will change and grow over time as you find additional fields that need to be populated on different listings. Service businesses will have different fields than retail businesses, and business-to-business will be different yet.
Here’s a list to get you started on your own NAP document:
- Business Name
- Business Phone Number (a local number)
- Business Address
- Business Email Address
- Business Website URL
- Office Hours
- Payments Accepted
- Short description of the business
- Categories of products / services
- Languages spoken
- Parking availability
- Social media links: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google, Pinterest, YouTube
- Link to business logo image and/or location of logo to upload
- Link to profile photo and/or location of profile photo to upload
- Professional Associations
Not only will this document help you keep your listings consistent, but having the information in one place will let you make optimal use of your time spent regularly updating your online business listings, and you will be able to more easily delegate this to someone else. Just an hour a month can make a big difference in your local search marketing results.
“There are very few things that could be considered more important in local SEO than consistency of structured citations. The first and most important thing that every business should do is get their “N.A.P.” consistent across the web. This is a much easier task than creating and optimizing a website, or creating and publicizing content, being active on social media, etc. There are also many tools that could help with this task. If your business information is not consistent online, it is very possible that your whole local SEO campaign might get ruined at some point. It only takes a duplicate listing for this to happen.
—Nyagoslav Zhekov
While you’re at it, you might consider keeping a list of all the directories you’ve claimed and updated. This will make it much easier to make update when you add a new store or your phone number changes.