Author | Chatmeter TeamDate Posted | March 11, 2019

How to Create The Perfect Online Business Listing: Think NAPWCHD

Local business listings are an integral part of any successful brick-and-mortar business today. Maintaining a complete and accurate online presence requires attention to detail in order to maintain trust with your customers.

When it comes to keeping online listings up-to-date most local SEO experts refer to the acronym NAP which stands for Name, Address, and Phone Number. However, successful brands now need a more complete and accurate online listing beyond NAP alone.

Remember a better way to ensure your online listings are complete, accurate, and lift your business up the search rankings. Say hello to NAPWCHD.

What does NAPWCHD stand for?

N – Business Name

Your business name needs to be accurate and consistent with any signage.

A – Address

Make sure to list the right address, this is the address Google will use to provide users with driving directions to your location.

P – Phone Number

It’s vital to have the right number listed for every location.

W – Website

Include your website in your listings. Take it one step further by adding location-specific pages.

C – Categories

Setting your right category and subcategories are essential for ranking in local unbranded keyword search queries.

H – Hours

Customers rely on businesses to provide accurate hours. Any inaccuracies on your business hours can cause customers to lose trust.

D – Description

What does your business do and who do you serve. You only have a few characters to get it right, make sure your description is in line with your offerings.

Examples of NAPWCHD on Local Business Listings

Why do I need NAPWCHD?

According to the 2018 Local Ranking Factors for Google, we see that know that 50% of these ranking factors include some level of NAPWCHD.

  • 25% of the ranking factors are from GMB signals. GMB signals include categories in addition to proximity, keywords in the business title, and more.
  • 14% of the ranking factors are from On-Page Signals. This includes the presence of NAP, keywords in titles, domain authority, and more.
  • 11% of the ranking factors are from Citation Signals. This includes IYP/aggregator NAP consistencycitation volume, and more.

How to use NAPWCHD to Improve Rankings

The best way NAPWCHD can be used to improve your rankings is by improving your citation presence. Citations are the appearance of NAPWCHD data across the web in the form of listings like Yelp, Google, and Facebook, as well as news sites, blog posts, and more.

The easiest way to do this is by using a local SEO software, like Chatmeter’s local listing management, to push out NAPWCHD information using a combination of direct APIs and aggregators to Tier 1 directories (Google, Apple, Facebook, Yelp, Foursquare, and Bing) and the smaller tier 2 and 3 directories. By creating and maintaining accurate listings across multiple directories, Google and other search engines are able to understand how well-known your business is and therefore rank it higher.

If you’re a multi-location brand or agency and you need help maintaining your listings, contact us to learn more about Chatmeter’s Local Listing Management services.