Should I Bother Updating NAP on Business Listings and 3rd Party Sites?

[dotgal]

With a lot of sentiment in the community that local citations aren't as important as it was years ago, what about updating the NAP information across different business listings and 3rd party sites? Would this have much impact on local SEO ranking and GMB ranking? Or it's more for the sake of having the correct NAP information across the Internet?

 

[dgrunited]

With a lot of sentiment in the community that local citations aren't as important as it was years ago, what about updating the NAP information across different business listings and 3rd party sites? Would this have much impact on local SEO ranking and GMB ranking? Or it's more for the sake of having the correct NAP information across the Internet?

Updating it is still better than not updating it especially if the link has been indexed by Google and / or they give you a do follow link to you website.

 

[Rich Owings]

I would only do it if the address, phone number or website are incorrect.

 

[johnlavapie_SEO]

With a lot of sentiment in the community that local citations aren't as important as it was years ago, what about updating the NAP information across different business listings and 3rd party sites? Would this have much impact on local SEO ranking and GMB ranking? Or it's more for the sake of having the correct NAP information across the Internet?

I would start with "high quality" sites that people really might use to find your business. Let's say your social media accounts, Yelp, Yellowpages, Foursquare (for Bing), etc. This is not for local SEO really - it's just giving the right information to websites your potential customers might see in sites they may use.

For those "low quality, low traffic, fringe business listings" - I wouldn't worry too much about it. But if you have the extra time - it won't hurt you.

 

[jeff_taylor]

With a lot of sentiment in the community that local citations aren't as important as it was years ago, what about updating the NAP information across different business listings and 3rd party sites? Would this have much impact on local SEO ranking and GMB ranking? Or it's more for the sake of having the correct NAP information across the Internet?

I think it's still important to hit up the citations that are in alignment with your business. Higher quality directories like yelp, Houzz (builders), FIndlaw (lawyers) - etc. Lower citations that don't rank on their own I wouldn't worry about.

 

[MiriamEllis]

*Full disclosure that I'm the Local SME at Moz, which sells citation management software. In my opinion:

1) Yes, you want to keep your citations accurate for ranking purposes. I do believe that accurate citations on platforms of good quality still contribute to rankings.
2) Yes, you want to keep your citations accurate for customers who encounter them.

 

[Eoghan_Aircam]

We've turned the long tail listing management on and off for clients for years, it makes no major difference in ranking on Google. Especially if you're doing it via aggregators. It's a brand protection play and a complete local seo optimization move that can give a competitive edge but not a fundamental we lead with.

If you're a brand new business just starting out I'd just focus on a top 10 set of search engines, directories (Yelp, Trip, Nextdoor + vertical specific) and map platforms. Do as much as you can on the top 5.

MomentFeed (my company) have bundles that sell long tail but it's a true optimization play to go out that long in 2021. We don't lead with it. If you're focus and budget constrained, definitely put the $$ into better review management and optimizing your own website for Local SEO before looking at the long tail.

There is no search traffic opportunity on Citysearch.com or Localstack or any of these other sites you'll see in these long tail vendor networks. Use SEMRush to see their high bounce rates also so what little traffic that is reported, majority doesn't make it past the first page. They also don't have high domain authority to even warrant a consideration that a citation there is meaningful in ranking (anything 70 or below I ignore).

Remember though, Local SEO is very competitive so to beat out your competitors you may need to match their efforts and find ways to exceed. Many big brands check the long tail box because their programs have been running that way for years and are now modernizing their approach by investing more in reviews, local web and local social.

 

[gsterling]

With a lot of sentiment in the community that local citations aren't as important as it was years ago, what about updating the NAP information across different business listings and 3rd party sites? Would this have much impact on local SEO ranking and GMB ranking? Or it's more for the sake of having the correct NAP information across the Internet?

Our data show that accurate and consistent location/listings data across critical sites DOES matter for visibility and ranking in GMB. Clearly, not as much as in the past, but there's still an impact which can be meaningful (Google's "prominence" criterion factors citations and third party directories into ranking). Disclosure: I'm now working for Uberall and listings management is one of our products. This decision is a no-brainer for multi-location brands who need a "single source of truth" for all their location data need a way to make changes across numerous locations through an API (e.g., business hours). For a single location SMB it's a much tougher call because of cost. They could just do GMB, Yelp, FB, Bing and one or two others manually (eventually Apple) -- and that's going to be fine. The business could also use Whitespark's service. But unless there's a deal it probably makes much less sense to pay for a SaaS subscription to manage listings.