NAP stands for Name, Address, Phone Number. NAP is used to create a Citation or a Business Listing. For businesses who want to rank locally, NAP is the number one Local SEO ranking factor for being listed. Search engines like Google and Bing use NAP to display businesses on maps and within the Local Listing section of searches.
WHAT IS AN EXAMPLE OF NAP?
Below is an example our Hang Ten SEO listing on Google My Business (GMB). As you can see it, to the right of the Google listings, our NAP is displayed within the business listing showing, our Name, Address and Phone Number. Google My Business also allows the inclusion of things like images, business hours, reviews, business description and so on.
HOW DO YOU BOOST YOUR LOCAL SEO EFFORTS USING NAP?
Boosting Your Local SEO presence requires that a business’s NAP be CONSISTENT, COMPLETE and without DUPLICATION across the web. In other words, a business’s NAP or citation shouldn’t deviate in naming structure, address or phone number. All of them need to be the same across all listing services. Any inconsistencies in the name, physical address listed and phone, will lower the ranking score for the business.
In my book Local SEO, I go into in-depth detail about NAP and how to apply it to a Local SEO strategy.
https://www.amazon.com/Tom-Crandall/e/B01N3NRURS
HOW DO YOU ADD A BUSINESS CITATION?
A citation or business listing is an instance of Name, Address and Phone Number (NAP). Normally to list a citation to a business listing service like Google My Business, Yelp, Bing and so on, you are normally required to enter the NAP information and then claim the listing. Many citation listing services require some sort of validation process to claim the listing. Some listing services such as Google My Business, send out address validation cards while others use email or phone validation. Once the listing is validated, many listing services allow you to add additional information pertaining to the listing.
IS YOUR NAP LOCAL?
To take advantage of local listings, make sure your Business’s NAP includes a local physical address and a local phone number. Companies that don’t have physical local address will not rank locally.
DO YOU HAVE DUPLICATE NAPS?
If you own multiple businesses at the same location and list them at the same address and phone number, duplicate citation will be created.
To eliminate the occurance of this, make sure the address and phone numbers are unique. Our article Local SEO – Citation Issues Using Suite goes into detail on how to setup multiple businesses at the same address.
IS THERE NAP SOFTWARE?
There are several companies that have created software and services that are helpful for use in citation building efforts.
OTHER HELPFUL LINKS:
Really an informative post. I have a question regarding NAP.
Is it OK to have same address with two abbreviations of street, State or Country listed on different listing sites?
like:
XXX st, XXXX West, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
or
XXX st, XXXX Wt, Chennai, TN, USA
although both are same address but still appear differently.
From everything I have read Google would like to keep NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number) consistent, that said, Google is smart enough now to know things like Ave and Avenue represent the same thing. Sometime when building out citations you don’t have control over how a company lists your address, so for instance they might use St for street or change West to W or something to that effect.
Normally if you have control over your address listing, stick to whatever the post office uses for your address, that probably is the best solution.
If you own both websites, change the addresses to be the same. If you don’t own both, you can always ask to have the address that is inconsistent to be changed.
I have a question about local city landing poages that I am struggling to find a answer to and was wondering if you would be as kind as to give me some insight and guidance into my dillema please?
this is great it helps me in searching the website locally higher