What does NAP stand for?
NAP is a acronym for Name, Address, Phone number and refers to the three most important elements of a local business citation.
Sometimes NAP is extended to NAPW which also includes Website.
Why is NAP important?
NAP is a common term in Local SEO and is important to ranking well in Local Search.
Search Engines look for your business NAP on webpages and when it finds your NAP on a page this is a local citation for your business and helps your business to rank better in local search.
Your NAP on a third party page is also extremely valuable as it tells the reader how to contact your business and the name of your business. This is another reason why your business citations need to be accurate. If your NAP is incorrect the reader may call the wrong phone number or turn up at the wrong address. You are likely to lose their business if this happens.
Optimizing your NAP
For your business to rank well in Local Search you should ensure your business’s NAP can be found on as many webpages as possible across as many different domains and pages as possible.
You can also place your NAP in other places like in the metadata of your images.
NAP consistency
It is very important that your NAP (or NAPW) is as consistent as possible across all places it occurs. Different variations of your NAP introduces uncertainty, the search engine cannot be as sure the citation is for the same business. When you NAP is not consistent across business citations your business may not receive as much local SEO value and may rank lower in local search. This could be the difference between being listed in the Google Snack Pack or not.
If your business changes Name, Address, Phone number or Website you should audit your citations and update them to be correct.
How myPresences helps
myPresences helps you to improve your NAP on many online services by:
- Showing you where your NAP is inconsistent
- Showing you where your NAP is incorrect
- Showing you where your NAP is incomplete
- Helping you get listed on more online services where your NAP can be found
