You might have heard of Local SEO NAP and user experience, but how relevant are these two terms to your business success? This article will talk about how NAP data consistency and user experience are essential components to your local SEO.
It’s certainly no secret that the majority of online searches are now done on mobile devices. As more and more consumers turn to their smartphones to buy products and services online, user behavior changes dramatically over time.
With iPads, smartphones, smartwatches, and other new mobile devices hitting the market monthly, t’s rare to find an online user who sticks to a single device today. As users move between devices, their search and discovery experiences change. As part of the Local Pack and algorithms are weighted differently, this poses new challenges for local businesses as they try to land the top spots in search engine results for mobile users.
One way to influence your local rankings is to focus on NAP consistency. As an essential part of Google’s local and Local Pack algorithms, building citations with a consistent NAP is one way to boost your local rankings. An acronym for name, address, phone number, NAP refers to the most critical information your customers need to connect with your business. Not only is NAP consistency essential for local SEO, but it also enhances the user experience as potential customers find your business in online directories and social bookmarking sites.
When the User Journey Starts
This question has been the topic of debate for quite some time. When do the user journey and brand experience begin? While some people believe it is when the user makes the first inquiry or spends a significant amount of time on your website, the journey actually starts a lot sooner.
Google data shows that five touchpoints generally lead to a purchase or affirmative site action. These are:
- Used a search engine
- Visited a store
- Visited a retailer website or app
- Visited another website or app
- Used a map
The user journey begins when a potential customer sees your brand in one of several places:
- The search results listing
- The Local Pack
- On a map
- At your brick-and-mortar store
Because local search is a crucial part of this journey, users need consistent information to progress to the next step in the buying process. With up to 78% of local-intent mobile searches resulting in an offline store visit within 24 hours, local search is even more critical to businesses today.
The biggest mistake business owners make is assuming that users find them through their website, guest posts, or Google My Business listings. Instead, most users find brands through a variety of online portals, including citation and listings directories.
Influencing the User Journey at a Search Stage For Local SEO
A user’s first search is your best opportunity to make an impression and be an active part of the user journey. If you are prominently in the Local Pack or within the SERPs, you want to hand your users valuable content that satisfies their user intent.
In today’s fast-paced, competitive business world, you can’t afford to be lazy with your local SEO. It’s essential to localize your website with effort, care, and detail. A lazy local page offers little value to your audience and will frustrate users when they realize your local page fails to meet their expectations.
Additionally, websites that use local content and pages for the sole purpose of ranking are penalized by the best search engines. Since valueless content is linked to a poor user experience, Google won’t even allow your website to rank if they find you’re cutting corners here.
Google refers to lazy local pages as doorways, documenting them as:
Sites or pages created to rank highly for specific search queries. They are bad for users because they can lead to multiple similar pages in user search results, where each result ends up taking the user to virtually the same destination. They can also lead users to intermediate pages that are not as useful as the final destination.
Even if you rewrite your content to avoid duplication, Google can sense if they all carry the same message with different target cities, offering no value to users at all.
Creating Good Local Value Pages
While it’s much easier for businesses to have a physical store location in the areas they want to target, this doesn’t mean companies with intangible products or services can’t have a local focus.
To rank higher in the local results, Google requires you to have the high-quality main content and supporting content. The main content of your website should reflect the products and services you offer. The supporting content is what adds value and relevance to the location you are targeting.
Businesses can create good value local pages by implementing these methods through blogs, as guides, or as resources for locals.
Consistency For Local SEO NAP
Let’s dive into NAP consistency now. As mentioned, NAP consistency is essential as potential customers find your business in online directory listings and citations. An incorrect or inaccurate NAP leads to frustration when your users spend their valuable time using the online information they’ve been provided and can’t get in touch with your business. This leads to lost leads.
Inconsistent NAP can be caused by several human errors or changes within your business.
This includes:
- Changing your address and not updating previously built citations or directory listings.
- Having a different store address from the company registered address online
- Generating different phone numbers for tracking purposes
- Not only does this inconsistency cause local SEO problems, but it also negatively impacts the user experience.
- A poor user experience can lead to loss of sales, lost leads, and damage to your brand reputation.
- User experience also depends on how the local journey is managed and whether you can satisfy all local intents.
Google Local Pack: User Experience and Attribution
Google’s Local Pack runs on an algorithm heavily influenced by a user’s location when searching. Unfortunately, Google My Business has an attribution problem. This means that clicks from GMB listings are often classified as direct traffic rather than organic traffic in Google Analytics. When you have a consistent NAP, you are more likely to appear in the Local Pack. Studies have shown that you are also more likely to get a high percentage of clicks on the results page when this happens. To resolve the GMB attribution problem, use this parameter:
?utm_source=GMBlisting&utm_medium=organic
If you’re likely to get many clicks, you’re going to need to meet your users’ expectations of fast loading pages and prominent information to satisfy their search intents.
Directory Attribution
This is a common problem for clients across the board. One marketing tactic organizations use generates unique phone numbers for every directory they submit to for marketing strategy track. While this can help you accurately gauge your ROI on your marketing efforts, it’s a nightmare for NAP consistency. That’s because you end up with many published citations that have different phone numbers for your business.
To complicate the matter further, many directories generate Google My Business listings based on the data you input. This leads to multiple Google My Business listings being generated for individual locations with different phone numbers and sometimes other map pin locations.
This is horrible for the user experience, as users are faced with multiple phone numbers or map pin locations for your business. How can they determine which is correct? When users see more than one phone number or map pin location, they’re forced to take extra action to contact your business. While some users might make the extra effort, most won’t.
Avoiding Scam Marketers
Another reason businesses use different numbers is to present false numbers on directory listings to avoid spam phone calls. While this will prevent you from getting spam, it also prevents you from getting calls from genuine paying customers. Think about how the things you do to avoid small problems can lead to more significant issues for your business.
Do your best to avoid marketing tactics that affect your users and their experience with their company. In some cases, a negative brand experience can lead to damage to your brand reputation that can’t be undone.
Getting Local Right
Local searches generally lead to higher conversion rates, as customers looking for products and services locally are more likely to pursue them and complete a purchase. Unfortunately, too many local businesses continue to fail to take advantage of the many opportunities in front of them. By tying in performance and user satisfaction, you can substantially grow your business.
One critical step towards that growth is creating NAP consistency and enhancing the user experience to boost local SEO results and pull in those high-converting customers. For more information on ways to increase your local SEO, check out this article. Stay on top of the latest industry trends in local SEO by subscribing to our blog.