NAP Consistency: Keeping Company Data Clean in Directories

Perhaps you've never come across the term NAP, yet it plays a part in deciding whether your customers find you online. NAP stands for Name, Address and Phone number. What's meant, then, is the basic data of your business, wherever it appears on the internet: on your website, in your Google Business Profile, on local.ch, in trade directories, on Facebook or in your supplier's database. NAP consistency simply means: these details appear identically everywhere.

Sounds trivial, but in practice it's surprisingly often in disarray. And exactly this disarray costs you visibility in local Google search.

Why is NAP consistency important for local ranking?

Google wants to show searchers only trustworthy, correct results. If the search engine finds your company in twenty different places on the web with twenty slightly differing addresses, uncertainty arises: which is right? Does this business even still exist? In doubt, Google prefers to show the competitor whose data matches up cleanly everywhere.

Consistent listings, by contrast, work like an echo that confirms itself. The more often Google finds the same name, the same street and the same number, the more confidently it assigns your business to the right location, and the sooner you land high up in local search and on the Google map. NAP consistency is thus one of the most unspectacular but effective tools in local SEO.

Where does your company data appear?

Most owners underestimate how many places their data circulates. A small inventory is worthwhile. Typical spots are:

• Your Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business), the most important source of all
• Directories like local.ch, search.ch, moneyhouse or the commercial register
• Industry portals of your trade (e.g. trustee, catering or tradesperson platforms)
• Social networks like Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn
• Map and navigation services like Apple Maps or Bing Maps
• Review platforms and, of course, your own website

Write these spots down once. Even while collecting them, many discover their first outdated phone number or the old location from before the move.

What counts as an inconsistency?

Here it gets tricky, because Google takes it more precisely than you'd think. Even small differences can be counted as two different entries. Pay particular attention to:

• Spelling of the street: «Bahnhofstrasse 12» versus «Bahnhofstr. 12»
• Legal form: «Muster GmbH» versus just «Muster»
• Phone number: with or without country code, with or without spaces (+41 52 … versus 052 …)
• Old data after a move, a name change or a new number

Your job is to define a binding spelling, a kind of house standard, and then carry it through everywhere. Decide once, for example, on the spelled-out «Strasse» and the international number format, and stick to it consistently.

How to get your listings in order

You don't have to manage it in a single day. Proceed step by step:

• Define the standard: put the one correct spelling of name, address and number in writing.
• Check the existing situation: google your company name and see where data appears everywhere, and where it deviates.
• Correct: adjust the listings, starting with the Google Business Profile and your website.
• Keep it current: with every change, new number, move, new name, update all sources promptly.

A practical tip: additionally store your NAP data on your own website as structured data (so-called LocalBusiness markup). That's invisible code that serves Google the details in machine-readable form. It helps the search engine recognise your company unambiguously.

How often should you check this?

Cleaned up once doesn't mean clean forever. Directories partly adopt data from one another automatically, and sometimes old listings reappear. A quick check twice a year is perfectly enough for most SMEs. More important is discipline at the moment of change: when you move or switch your number, updating the online listings belongs on the same to-do list as the letterbox and the business cards.

NAP consistency is no wizardry, but care. Anyone who keeps their company data clean builds trust, with Google and with the people looking for you. If you're unsure where your data appears everywhere or how to build in the structured markup, I'm happy to help. Simply get in touch with no obligation, or browse other articles on being found locally.