What does NAP stand for? Local SEO citations (free tool)

In search engine optimization (SEO), local citation is the mention of your company and its core contact details on other websites or portals. Local citations play a vital role in improving the rank of your website in local search results.

When a user types in a search query, the results are based on multiple factors. One of the main criteria that decides search rankings today is the number of times these local citations appear.

What is NAP? In SEO, NAP stands for name, address, and phone number.

In turn,

local citation

is an accurate and precise mention of your organization’s NAP, whether those details appear on a

local web directory

or website.

Any information related to your business that appears on external websites such as hours of operation, size of the company, descriptions of what the business does, images, videos, and business categories also gets counted as citations. To rank higher in search engines, your NAP and other descriptors of your organization as many places as possible.

At Epik Solutions, we have a custom tool we use to assess local citations such as NAP:

Scan my Business

for

Local SEO

Scan My Business helps businesses expand their online presence on relevant websites. The tool identifies the places that could be helpful to boost the ranking of your business across various search engines. Beyond being a local listing checker, Scan My Business is a full-fledged

business scanning software

that provides tips to build your business’s reputation, manage wrong locations, improve star ratings, and fix bad data. With the help of this tool, businesses can measure their overall progress, check local citations and bolster their online reputation. Scan My Business helps businesses evaluate the accuracy of information on sites where the business is currently listed.

Business scanning software

How do citations impact local SEO?

More citations of your business will rank you higher on search engines. However, apart from the volume of local citations, there are a number of other factors that decide the ranking. One is the credibility and accuracy of the source of the citation. Simply listing your website on a hundred websites or directories with weak domain authority is ineffective. Also consider consistency. To rank better, one must ensure that the

NAP

is uniform on your website and on these directories. If not, it will have a negative impact on your local SEO.

Facebook, Foursquare, and Yelp are examples of websites with strong domain authority. Citations on these sites can help customers find and review you, improving the overall star rating of your business.

Another way to gain visibility is by building citations through press releases or references in online publications. There are various regional, national and international sites that allow guest blogs, press releases, news publications, images, and videos of your business.

Your ultimate goal is to make sure that customers (current and potential) and search engines are able to retrieve accurate information about your business, wherever it is published on the web. Local SEO tools such as Scan My Business help businesses build local citations, expanding their reach and improving their chances of higher search results. This tool is easy to use and can rapidly boost the ranking of your website. All you have to do is provide consistent and accurate details about your business.
Local Citations

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