Google Places Tip – Establish your NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number Profile)

Establish Your Name, Address, Phone Number Profile (NAP)

Now that you have claimed your Google Places Listing & Optimized it to its fullest, you need to establish your NAP. Just because you have a well claimed & optimized Google Places listing that does not mean you will be rankng on Page One. Google wants to list the most legit & qualified providers first. So how do they filter who gets the page one listings? Well, there are a number of factors, but one of them is how widely is the company referenced on OTHER online directory sites like Yellow Pages, City Search, Yelp and others.

You need to make sure you have a consistent N.A.P. (name, address, phone number) profile across the web. That just means, when Google looks up your company name in your city, whatever that happens to be, it’s finding you in a variety of places outside of Google

Places (Angies List, Judies Boo, Yellow Pages, Etc).

It’s finding you on the Yellow Pages, it’s finding you on CitySearch, it’s finding you on Angie’s List, it’s finding you on InfoUSA, it’s finding you on Axiom.com, etc, etc. A complete list of the top citations sources to add your company to can be found in our FREE Google Places Guide available at http://www.plumberseo.net/google-places-guide.

Citations are all data providers and places that Google says that it spiders to find whether or not a company is really legit, and they exist at a specific address. One of the first things you want to do, in order to establish that name, address, phone number profile and really make sure that that’s consistent across the board is to create an account with each of those

online directories.

So how do you get Citations to establish your NAP?

Go to InfoUSA.com, Yahoo.com, CitySearch.com, Angieslist.com, etc. All of them give you the ability to either add or claim your existing listing on those sites. By going to those sites and making sure that you exist (first of all) and if you do exist, claiming yourself, and then building out your profile. By doing this you can make sure that you’ve got a consistent name, address, and phone number, which is a key component of Advanced Google Places Optimization strategy.

When I say making sure that it’s consistent, you want to make sure your name is the legitimate name for your business. If you’re “Bob’s Plumbing Company”, you want to make sure you’re listed as “Bob’s Plumbing Company”, versus just Bob’s Plumbing. Or, for instance, if you’re “Bob’s Plumbing and Drain Cleaning”, and that’s your legal name, make sure you list it as “Bob’s Plumbing and Drain Cleaning”.

The other thing I want you to be aware of is that there is a lot of miss information about how to list your company name on Google Places. You may read information online suggesting that you keyword stuff your name. For example, If your name is “Bob’s Plumbing”, somebody might tell you, “Oh, it would be really smart if you just added to the title of your company “Bob’s Plumbing | Dallas Plumber” for instance. While that may have worked back in the day, it’s no longer an effective strategy. It’s actually a violation of Google Places’ policies and procedures. Make sure you list your exact company name and use it the same way across the board on

all your directory sources that I’ve just referred to, and do it the same way every single time. Make sure you use the same phone number in all those places. I’m a big advocate for having tracking phone numbers and tracking what’s happening

with your marketing, but when it comes to your online directory listings, when it comes to Google Places optimization, you want to use your primary business phone number. The one you’ve been using from the beginning.

Don’t try to create some unique number for each one of your directories, because what that does is it confuses your name/address profile. It will hurt you, it’ll actually significantly hurt you. So use your primary phone number in all of those places, use your exact

company name, and use your same principal address, written the same way. If you’re at “1367 South West 87th Street, Suite Number 105″, make sure you list it just like that every single time. Don’t leave the suite off in one place and put it on in another, don’t

spell out “South West” in one place and put “SW” in the other. What we’re driving for is a consistent name/address profile across the web, on all of the different online directory sources.

Want more details on how to optimize your Google Places Listing for Page One Placement? Download our FREE Google Places Optimization Guide.

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