It is crucial to make sure your online listings have the correct name, address, and phone number (NAP) across the Internet.
Directory Listings and Citation Listings
A citation is an online mention of your business’s name, address, and phone number (NAP). This means that the directory listing creates a citation that contains your business information. Citations occur on local online business directories, websites, apps, and social platforms. These online listings help online website users find businesses and can also impact local search engine rankings via the Local Set of Google Maps listings.
Many directory and citation sites such as YP.com, Foursquare, YELP, Angi, etc. offer a free listing to all businesses. For pest control companies, having as many of these listings as possible will count as backlinks and add to your overall domain authority. Not to mention, these sites can help increase organic traffic to your website.
There are lots of helpful and useful software products that can take your listings and distribute them across numerous directories online to help you get many live citations. This all adds SEO value and domain authority to your website and online presence.
NAP is an acronym for Name, Address, and Phone number. The NAP for your business needs to be correct and consistent when optimizing your website and online presence for local searches because Google values accurate information for its users.
Having your name, address, and phone number appear identical in all places online is very important to your online presence.
There are many good SEO software options that can help you do two things:
A consistent NAP is an important part of Google’s local search and Local Pack algorithms.
Building citations with a consistent NAP on your Google Business Profile listing and other online directories and sites can influence your local rankings and indexing.
However, having a consistent NAP is also important to the buyer’s journey, as online directories and social bookmarking sites aren’t just used by Google – they’re used by consumers, too.
Maintaining a high level of consistency and accuracy reduces the risk of mistakes being made by search engines, social sites and others that may be mechanically processing the information.
The most important reason for consistency is that conflicting information can diminish Google’s trust in your location’s data, which doesn’t equate to your listing being considered as the best result for a relevant search query and placement on a SERP (search engine results page).
For more on NAP consistency and directory citation listings, refer to the following:
You can also download our FREE guide on NAP directory listings for pest control by clicking the link below:
Learn the importance of NAP and how to develop a successful backlinking strategy using online directories and citations.