What does NAP mean and how can it be used to improve our SEO?
Introduction
If you’ve recently been visiting various digital marketing agencies, well you will know all too well that some just spout marketing jargon for the mere sake of it.
What can happen is some business owners come out of a meeting with more questions than answers.
Recognising the need that the business needs to invest in local seo, yet now wondering what business citations and NAP stands for.
But do not worry, you haven’t got to go back to those agencies that sound like they are reading from a marketing jargon textbook.
No, that’s because we offer a different approach, we explain things simply. So, let’s start by explaining what NAP means and how this is crucial to the success of your businesses seo.
What does NAP mean?
NAP stands for name of the business, its address and phone number, it really isn’t any more complicated than that!
Where it does get a bit more complex is how you should use this NAP information to improve where your business ranks locally.
So for example, if you’re a solicitor, dentist or a plumber you will want your business to be ranked at the top of Google.
And your seo agency should therefore be using your businesses NAP information in order to improve where your business ranks.
However, before we continue its worth mentioning this, and that is NAP is not the only thing that your seo company should be working on.
The reason being is this, Google’s algorithm takes into account over 200 ranking signals, that’s when working out which website is best.
So, as you can imagine, optimising your businesses NAP information is only a small fraction of the seo work that is often needed. Yet, optimising the NAP information correctly is a vital component of any seo marketing strategy.
Getting your NAP details right onsite
First things first, you have to get your NAP details right onsite. Now you might be thinking, how can a business get the NAP information wrong on their own website, but believe us some do.
The most common issues are often when the NAP information is written into an image. The reason being is Googlebot will struggle to read the NAP information, so instead you should write it in plain text.
Using plain text will allow Googlebot to read the NAP information, and therefore update the algorithm with your businesses NAP information.
Also, its worth asking a digital marketing agency to mark-up the NAP information using Schema.
Why its important to optimise your Google My Business listing
Once your business has the NAP information written on your website, we would recommend the next best step is to optimise your businesses Google My Business listing.
You should optimise your Google My Business listing by making sure the NAP information matches your website.
Your should write a detailed business description, you should also add as much description as possible.
The reason for all this work is simple, your business will want to displayed in the Google local business listings, so you stand a much better chance if you have spent the extra time filling in your Google My Business listing as much as you can.
Why your business should use a local phone number
So many businesses just state a mobile phone number, and with good reason and that’s because an emergency plumber may have no other option than to use his or her mobile number.
But if you do have the choice, then use your landline number instead. Most digital marketing agencies believe that its better to optimise your website using a local phone number, than a mobile number.
What is Schema?
Schema is a structured language, this means that Googlebot will know your businesses name, address and phone number easily if you mark-up the text using schema.
As you can imagine, there’s loads of information on your company website, from its opening hours, to how the business started. So, by adding Schema you are helping Googlebot to save time, and quickly check your businesses NAP information.
What are business citations?
Business citations are simply mentions of your businesses NAP information on other websites. We would highly recommend writing your businesses NAP information on quality websites such as Facebook.
We would therefore recommend setting up a business profile, and adding NAP information to a Facebook page. You can also create business citations on other quality websites.
Can we help?
If your business requires help with its online marketing, then why not give us a call?
