What is Nap SEO? Local Marketing FAQ

NAP SEO doesn’t relate to a sleepy form of search engine optimization. It stands for Name, Address, and Phone number. It has become an essential part of SEO for ranking business websites, especially for local businesses. Understanding how to use NAP is of the utmost importance for any business owner that wants to outrank their competitors.

What is NAP SEO?

If you are doing local SEO for any business (including your own), you need to be aware of NAP. NAP is an acronym that means Name, Address, and Phone number. NAP is the foundation of any well-structured SEO campaign for a local business. If your business serves customers in a given area, chances are you have competitors that are also targeting those same people. Depending on your market and experience, competition could be fierce. NAP may seem fundamental, but the more places your business appears online, the higher the chance one of your NAP elements is incorrect.

What Happens if NAP isn’t Correct?

Google uses ranking factors to determine if a business, or any website in general, is relevant in a given niche or market. There are several ranking factors, like whether your website uses HTTP or HTTPS, website speed, backlink profile, backlinks to your content, on-page optimization, schema, canonical link structure, and dozens more. NAP is one of the ranking factors that helps Google connect the dots of how your business fits into a specific region. If your business name is listed differently in several places, how can Google be sure of who you are? If your address or phone number is different, how can the user (your potential customers) be sure of how to find or get a hold of you? Your website will struggle to rank above your competitors if they have an optimized NAP and you do not.

If you’re not sure whether or not your NAP is correct, you can check it out using the free MOZ local listing tool. MOZ will show you how consistent or inconsistent your NAP is so you can address it. If the tool shows a wildly inconsistent NAP presence, then your local SEO game is pretty much pointless. It’s a relatively easy fix though if you are dedicated to increasing your online presence.

Related: Looking for Linkbuilding tips? Read why we believe linkbuilding is not dead and what you need to know.

How Do You Do NAP SEO?

More likely than not, you have your name, address, and phone number listed on your website. If you don’t have it listed, you need to list it immediately! Some common places to put NAP include your website footer, contact page, sidebar, or even the header. The goal here is to make it as visual as possible. You want your future clients and customers to find you!

Other places you can list your NAP are generally local citation sites. Citation links are important as they not only build trust within your community but also allow locals the opportunity to share how they feel about your business and either rate or review their experience with you. Some examples of citation links include having a profile on Yelp, Better Business Bureau [BBB], TripAdvisor, Foursquare, Manta, and more. You can either build these profiles individually or use paid software to build them for you and track them with a dashboard.

Pro Tip: The MOZ local listing checker mentioned above is a great place to start if you are wondering how to tackle your NAP presence online.

How Can Next Level Services Help?

As mentioned earlier, local SEO efforts are pretty much pointless if NAP SEO isn’t consistent. We address it in all of our SEO packages, including SEO Lite, SEO Prime, and SEO Elite. We will build local citations for your business, optimize your GBP (Google Business Profile), keep your NAP SEO consistent, and make sure your location shows up on Google Maps. Fill out the form for a quote or contact us today!