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When creating a business listing within an online directory, there is a lot of important information to include. One set of information that is crucial to the success if your listing is your NAP, or your business’ name, address, and phone number. Although it may seem like you could never mistakes when it comes to these details of your business, it’s surprising of just how often it happens. With one simple tip, you can ensure it doesn’t happen to you.
The Stats on Incorrect NAPs
Before thinking that you could never make a mistake with your company’s NAP, consider these stats according to vandasta.com:
• 86 percent of businesses with directory listings have an incorrect company name across all listings.
• 72 percent of businesses have incorrect address information across all of their listings.
• 71 percent of businesses have an incorrect phone number across all of their listings.
Although it may seem like these types of mistakes are impossible to make, they aren’t. For example, consider a business owner that is located at 123 Main Street. On some listings they may state that as ‘Main Street’ while on others they may state their address as being on ‘Main St.’ It’s a small difference, but one that creates a big error when it comes to listing consistency.
Set it and Forget it with Online Directories
Many marketing campaigns require constant maintenance. Facebook ads need to be managed, and print ads need to be proofed and updated. Campaigns often require constant tinkering. Marketing through an online directory though, simply by creating a listing for your business, is very low maintenance. Once a listing has been created, you can essentially ‘set it and forget it.’
When a business listing has been created properly from the start, there is little that needs to be done in the future with the listing. If the entire profile is filled out, and all the rules of specific directories are followed, then you can likely leave it as is for a little while. It shouldn’t require a lot of micromanaging.
That’s not to say though, that a listing will never need to be managed. When information within a listing is out of date and incorrect, it can backfire on the business. The listing’s ranking within the directory might fall, and the ranking of the business’ website may also fall in the search engine result pages.
How to Maintain NAP Consistency
Any mistake contained within a business’ NAP information can turn into a real nightmare for business owners. The simple answer is to write down the information you use within your business’ NAP in the very first listing you create. You can then return to this information with each new listing, write it down in the new listing in the exact way it appeared in the original, and ensure your listings are consistent.
It’s important to make sure your listings are updated any time there is a major change. If the business moves, gets a new phone number, or changes its website’s domain address, it’s crucial that the listings are changed to reflect that right away.
Even when major changes haven’t been made within the business, you should still review your listings every four to six months. The information should be checked to ensure accuracy and reviews should be read to ensure you haven’t missed any. At this time, you can also update the listing with new photos, videos, or posts.
The time spent every several months to review and update your listing shouldn’t be very long. Without verification processes and registration forms to fill out, it will take just a fraction of the time it did to create the listing. And it will certainly be much less time than what is spent on other types of marketing campaigns.
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