NAP: What This Means to Google & Why It’s Vital for Business Success

The Importance of Consistency for a Company’s Information Online

One of the important things we do for our clients is to fix the “NAP”, which is the name, address, and phone number of a business.

You may think that sounds like a straightforward thing to do. Or perhaps you don’t understand why there would be any problem regarding your company’s basic information.

You’d be surprised.

These primary pieces of information about your business – Name, Address, Phone Number – are vital to customers finding you AND for Google ranking you well. And there is a considerable number of ways that different places on the internet could get info about your company wrong – and that can damage you and your bottom line.

I have analyzed the online presence of hundreds of companies, and I can’t recall finding a single business that didn’t have at least one discrepancy in their NAP somewhere on the internet.

How can the basic info of a company’s name, phone, and location get wrong? There are many ways this can happen.

Here are some of the most common ways wrong information gets put on the internet about a business:

You started the business in your home before moving into a new location
You moved the company from one place to another
You bought out a competitor
You took on a partner
You got divorced

Any of these items can leave a mess behind a business. Because if you remember, it’s all about trust.

NAP stands for the name, address, and phone number, and it is important that it is consistent.

It’s all about helping Google see who you are, where you are, what you do, and why you’re the best at it. If Google looks at all these different social media sites and directories and websites, and they see four different addresses, three different phone numbers, or even what looks like three various business name changes.

Sometimes your company’s name has LLC, some places it doesn’t, and some places it’s listed with incorporated spelled out. To Google, that can be very confusing. It can look like you have six different business names, three different addresses, and two different phone numbers.

considerable number of ways that different places on the internet could get info about your company wrong

How to Fix Your Company’s Online Information

You can start today by making sure your current social media profiles have the correct address that matches your website and that you’re writing it the same way. For example, if you have a suite number, be sure that suite is written only one way, either suite or STE.

You want those things to be consistent.

The more you can get rid of any friction for Google and have consistency with your business name and information, the easier it is for Google to trust you as a top search result in your service area.

Create a standard for exactly how your company name, address, and phone should be displayed. Make it known to all staff, any outside agencies handling your marketing or social media, or another party responsible for putting your information out there. Just being really consistent about that is essential.