NAP consistency isn’t the end-all and be-all for ranking high in your local search results. It is only one piece of the puzzle that is SEO.
Google has many tips on how to improve your info to appear in relevant searches in your area. Below are some tips they give for improving your Google My Business profile:
- Enter complete data
- Verify your location(s)
- Keep your hours accurate
- Manage and respond to reviews
- Add photos
Keep reading to learn the truth about what NAP consistency means
As a local business, having potential customers in your area aware of your existence and the products and services you offer is a vital component of your company’s success.
There are a few ways to get in front of potential customers so you are top of mind when they need you. Usually this is done with different types of marketing. But, since the inception of the internet and search browsers becoming mainstream, another major way that consumers find your business is organic search. This means they type in the browser what they are looking for and the list of local businesses appear.
To be a leader in your local search market, you must have a good internet presence, which includes using successful SEO (search engine optimization) best practices.
One factor of local SEO that cannot be ignored, and any smart digital marketer must be aware of, is NAP consistency.
Yet, any smart marketer also knows that it is vital to properly track and measure marketing attribution for marketing success, too. One vital way to do this, especially for local business that are appointment-based and rely on the phone for appointments and sales, is with call tracking.
There have been many claims that you cannot have proper, successful NAP consistency when using call tracking, which leads businesses to believe that you can’t have both great local SEO and properly attribute your phone calls – but this is not true.
Call tracking, when done correctly, will not have a negative impact on NAP consistency and your local SEO.
Read on below to learn how your local company can have it all: great local SEO, correct NAP consistency, and call tracking.
What is NAP consistency?
NAP is an acronym standing for Name, Address, Phone Number. Having NAP consistency means having a consistent listing of your business’s name, address, and phone number (and also website – but NAPW just doesn’t sound as catchy) across all listings on the internet.
Having consistent listings helps search engines match your business and serve it up as a local result.
Why is NAP consistency important?
Although no one knows the exact formula for Google’s ever-changing SEO ranking methods, it is evident that NAP consistency is an important factor for businesses, especially those who want to show up in local search.
It has been said that having too many inconsistent listings of your company, even with slight variances of company name such as Sunrise Heating and Cooling vs. Sunrise HVAC can impact your business’ reliability to search engine crawlers, therefore ruining higher ranking chances.
NAP consistency and local SEO
NAP consistency is especially relevant for local businesses that want to have high rankings in local SEO results.
Interested in some Local Business Digital Marketing strategies? We’ve got a podcast episode on that very topic here.
When Google crawlers can correctly identify your business and where it is located, it has a better chance of showing up higher in local search results and having a good presence in the Google Local Pack.
But NAP consistency isn’t the end-all and be-all for ranking high in your local search results. It is only one piece of the puzzle that is SEO. Google’s specific algorithm for measuring SEO is their own “secret sauce,” and few actually see the real formula. Basically, Google’s algorithm is continuously updating to keep rewarding pages that they feel are delivering valuable information to the end user, which is the mission of Google’s search.
The more times your company appears in local searches, the more opportunities there are to bring leads to your business.
Google has many tips on how to improve your info to appear in relevant searches in your area. Below are some tips they give for improving your Google My Business profile:
- Enter complete data
- Verify your location(s)
- Keep your hours accurate
- Manage and respond to reviews
- Add photos
Many businesses don’t even have a complete Google My Business profile, so before worrying about the more detailed SEO tactics, it is important to make sure your business has a completed profile on Google My Business if you want to show up in local search results.
Why is local SEO important for your business?
Having a good SEO presence, especially a good local SEO presence, is detrimental if you want to show up to local consumers searching for a need they have from a nearby business.
For example, if a person nearby searches Google for “Toyota dealership near me,” your business will show up in the Google local pack as long as you are performing well in local SEO and have a completed Google My Business profile.
To gain more customers and get more business, you must appear in local search results – how else do you expect consumers to find you? If you don’t exist on the internet, you won’t exist in the minds of most people who are searching for your products or services.
The more times your company appears in local searches, the more opportunities there are to bring leads to your business.
Does call tracking affect NAP consistency?
Now for the hard-hitting question: does call tracking negatively affect NAP consistency?
Since most call tracking methods require unique call tracking numbers to be placed on your different marketing sources, the answer here is more like a hard “maybe,” rather than a definitive “yes” or “no.” Unfortunately, most things with SEO aren’t necessarily black and white (as much as we’d all like them to be).
While NAP consistency outlines that your name, address, and phone number must match, it isn’t clear what weight this has in your overall SEO presence.
NAP Consistency Importance for SEO
Keep in mind that there are different types of call tracking methods – static call tracking and dynamic number insertion (DNI). Dynamic numbers display a different number to every consumer; the numbers that are displayed are different than what the real connecting number is on the backend.
Dynamic numbers are configured in such a way that they have no effect on NAP consistency.
It used to be said that regular, static call tracking hurts SEO, but technologies and SEO best practices have both evolved since then. The myth that call tracking ruins your SEO simply isn’t true.
In Google’s most recent guidelines for representing your business on Google, they note to provide a phone number that connects to your business location “as directly as possible,” OR to include a website. The “P” in NAP could also refer to your website, and therefore we can’t be exactly sure how much weight one or the other really holds. (We don’t have a Google crystal ball).
Another key thing to note is Google says “additional phone numbers can be used on Google My Business websites and other local surfaces.” If Google was to negatively impact having different phone numbers on different websites, would they allow additional phone numbers to be used on other websites? Call tracking numbers can be used in local search – especially if you follow this easy step-by-step process to add a call tracking number in Google My Business.
This quote goes contradicts the “rule,” saying that the NAP must be 100% consistent on all sites and across everywhere that your business may appear on the web.
Using call tracking & having NAP consistency
Though it is clear that NAP consistency is an important factor of local SEO, it shouldn’t make you afraid to use call tracking to help your company have the most accurate marketing attribution.
The benefits of using call tracking are clear:
- Accurately attribute which ad sources callers call from
- Make better marketing decisions to impact ROI
- Discover peak times for inbound phone calls to make scheduling decisions
- Record phone calls for employee and customer insights
- And much more
Businesses don’t want to have to choose between using call tracking to help business performance or have superior SEO practices in place for a better online presence. And that choice doesn’t have to be made. There are ways to utilize call tracking and be an SEO-friendly company.
- Dynamic Number Insertion
- With DNI, you can accurately track consumers down to the referral site and keyword level to see what leads people to your site – and has no impact on SEO.
- Tracking your main business line
- Though tracking your main business line isn’t as effective for marketing decisions as using unique call tracking numbers is, it is an option for those who are still concerned about the effects that call tracking may or may not have on NAP consistency. Tracking your main line requires setting up that number with tracking enabled. Talk to a CallSource specialist for more information on this method of call tracking.
- Static call tracking
- Since the impact that NAP consistency really has on local SEO is still slightly unclear, and whether or not phone number or website consistency matters the most in your NAP, it is probably safe to still use unique call tracking numbers on certain places that your company appears online. Just be sure that the rest of your NAP information (Name, Address, Website) remain consistent throughout. Stay up-to-date with the rest of SEO best practices to ensure that you are continuously improving and optimizing your website to be optimized to show up in search engines.
Win with complete marketing attribution and SEO-friendly tracking
CallSource’s EveryLead platform enhances Google Analytics data and pulls together all of your online and offline attribution in one easy-to-use platform so that you can see all of your traditional and digital (paid and organic) marketing campaigns at-a-glance. EveryLead uses dynamic number insertion, so you can be sure that nothing is negatively impacting your SEO.
Ready to start tracking your customers’ complete journey, online to offline, cross-domain and cross-device? Request a meeting with a CallSource specialist or call 833-EVERYLEAD to learn more.
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