Extremely important for Google local search rankings and because it helps search engines and customers easily find and contact a local business. The acronym; NAP is short for “Name, Address and Phone Number.”
Things to consider regarding NAP:
- Name - Consistency in your business name across all listings and citations makes it easier for search engines to understand the business identity and prevents duplicate or conflicting listings.
- Address - The full physical address must be consistent everywhere the business listing appears. This signals to search engines the specific geographic location of the business.
- Phone number - Pretty self explanatory -- if you are looking for customers to call your business, providing a consistent and accurate primary phone number across all listings and citations is a must.
- Listings - NAP should be consistent on key local listings like Google My Business, Apple Maps, Bing Places, Yelp and other directories. This consistency helps aggregate reviews and signals authority.
- Citations - The NAP should also appear on local business citation sites & directories across the web. The more quality citations, the stronger the local SEO foundation.
- Schema markup - Businesses can include NAP schema markup on their website to further improve visibility & generate rich snippets.