Module 6: Citations and NAP consistency

What citations are and where you need them

A citation is any place on the web that lists your business name, address, and phone number: Yelp, Apple Maps, Bing Places, Facebook, Yellow Pages, your chamber of commerce, industry directories (like a "find a lawyer" directory for attorneys). Google cross-references these to confirm your business is real and to pin down your correct details. Dozens of consistent citations build trust; conflicting ones create doubt.

Claim each listing rather than letting auto-generated versions float around unclaimed. Unclaimed listings get outdated, collect wrong info from data aggregators, and sometimes sprout competitors' ads on your own page. Claiming is usually free and takes ten minutes per site.

Prioritize by traffic: the directories that actually send you customers deserve the most attention. Check your website analytics for referral traffic — if Yelp sends visitors and a random directory sends none, polish Yelp first. A perfect profile on a site nobody visits is a vanity project; a good profile where customers actually look is a revenue driver.

Auditing your NAP by hand

Here's the manual audit: open a spreadsheet with columns for site, business name, address, phone, website, and status. Search Google for your business name plus your city, then your phone number in quotes ("(512) 555-0147"). Work through the first five pages of results and log every listing you find. You'll typically find 15–40 listings, and I'd bet money at least a few have an old address, a disconnected phone number, or a name variant from three rebrands ago.

Do this audit once a year and any time you move, change numbers, or rebrand. Data aggregators (the companies that feed listings to hundreds of small directories) refresh slowly, so expect cleanup to take 4–8 weeks to fully propagate. Patience is part of the process.

When you find a wrong listing you can't fix directly, document it: screenshot, URL, what's wrong, and the date you reported it. This paper trail matters if the error ever costs you business or if you need to escalate with the directory. Most issues resolve within two follow-ups when you're specific, polite, and persistent.

Fixing duplicates and wrong listings

For each wrong listing: if you can claim it, claim it and correct it. If it's on a directory with an edit-suggestion feature (Yelp, Apple Maps), submit the correction. For stubborn ones, most directories have a "report a problem" or support contact — be polite, specific, and include your correct details plus a link to your website as proof.

Duplicates are the most damaging: two Google listings for one location split reviews and confuse rankings. In your Business Profile dashboard, use "suggest an edit" on the duplicate and mark it as a duplicate of your main listing, or contact Google Business support directly. On other directories, request a merge or removal, citing the canonical listing.

Keep your audit spreadsheet as a living document — add the login for every directory you claim. Next year's audit takes an hour instead of a day, because you're updating, not discovering. This is unglamorous work, and it's exactly why most of your competitors won't do it, which is precisely why you should.

For Google duplicates specifically, don't just report — also strengthen the correct listing: add fresh photos, post an update, and gather two or three new reviews. A strong, active canonical listing helps Google's systems resolve the duplication correctly. The best defense against duplicates is a primary listing so complete and active that the algorithm has no doubt which one is real.