How Inconsistency Destroys Your Local SEO Campaign

As a relatively young concept, local SEO is a somewhat confusing matter for many people – in part because of its significant potential.0 If it is properly executed to focus on improving customer experiences, local SEO can be a simple series of practices easy enough for any business owner to follow. The Pigeon algorithm update in 2014 re-designed the way that local search works; rather than focusing on traditional search practices such as offsite link profiles and content, Google now uses local directory websites more often. Sites that benefit from a high amount of positive reviews online are more likely to get an improved search engine position. As a result, a lot of optimizers for local SEO have been taking measures to adjust their current strategies, concentrating on ways to build online reviews, to drive more traffic. Sometimes, simple improvements such as better customer service can ensure an enhanced probability of positive reviews, thereby improving search rankings dramatically. Most of the time, however, when local businesses start to struggle with lower rankings, the issue is a symptom of a much simpler core problem. Spending weeks cultivating positive reviews won’t help if there’s a fundamental problem with your campaign, and unfortunately, such a structural issue is incredibly common. Fortunately, though, fixing this issue can be easy once you know what you’re looking for.

Identifying the Problem

In the simplest terms, the problems businesses face is inconsistency. The inconsistency that can compromise your whole local SEO campaign regards your name, address, and phone number. This is the information that Google utilizes to understand and categorize your business. Even the slightest inconsistency within this information can have a detrimental effect on your rankings. Before you make the assumption that your site is perfectly fine, think hard about your information. First of all, remember that Google takes inconsistency incredibly seriously. Everything right down to the punctuation and formatting of your entries will be taken into consideration and compared to other instances. You might think that West Street and West St. are consistent entries, but they are not. Though the same idea is conveyed, Google does not consider the rankings to be consistent, and this harms your local rankings.

Applying the Solution

With this information in mind, you should be able to utilize your own resources and find out whether there are discrepancies in your NAP somewhere throughout the web. Even if things seem to be perfect at first glance, it’s a good idea to check and check again to make sure that your information is consistent in every potential format. Unlike many strategies for search engine ranking, ensuring that your NAP is consistent shouldn’t require a great deal of continuous maintenance. For many businesses, the process is a one-time thing that instantly opens them up to improved search ranks and higher authority. However, this doesn’t mean that it’s not worth doing occasional checks to ensure nothing new has gone wrong with your information, especially if you move your place of business or update something, such as a phone number.