Thirty points across five categories. Lock the canonical name-address-phone string, push it to the directories that matter, clean up the conflicts, then keep it consistent. Citations don't win rankings on their own — inconsistent ones lose them.
Match your GBP and storefront signage — usually the DBA, not the legal entity. No keywords, no geo modifiers, no 'LLC' unless it's genuinely part of how you present the business. This decision is permanent; make it once, in writing.
One doc with the exact name, address, phone, website URL, hours, and categories. Every listing gets copy-pasted from this file — nobody types NAP from memory. Share it with anyone who touches a directory.
Not 'close enough' — identical. 'St' vs 'Street', '&' vs 'and', '(480)' vs '480-' are all mismatches to a machine. Google reconciles most variants, but every inconsistency is a confidence tax you don't need to pay. Why NAP consistency matters covers the mechanics.
Suite numbers are the most common silent mismatch. Pick one format — 'Ste 4', 'Suite 4', '#4' — and lock it. Put it in the address line the directory expects (line 2 where offered), never appended to the business name.
The canonical phone is a local area code number that rings your business, forever. Tracking numbers belong in ads and landing pages, not in citations — a tracking number in a directory becomes a permanent NAP mismatch the day you retire it.
GBP is the citation every other citation gets compared against. Verify name, address, phone, and website URL against your source-of-truth doc character by character. If GBP is wrong, fix it first — before building anything else.
Roughly half of mobile map queries in the US run through Apple Maps by default. Claim via Apple Business Connect, verify, and populate with the canonical NAP plus photos and hours.
Bing lets you import directly from your Google Business Profile — the fastest correct citation you'll ever build. Import, then verify nothing got mangled in transit.
Yelp feeds Apple Maps reviews and dozens of downstream scrapers. Claim it even if you never plan to engage there — an unclaimed Yelp page accumulates errors nobody corrects.
Check the About section — the address and phone there count as a citation. Facebook pages set up years ago by a previous owner or marketer are a common source of stale NAP.
You don't need accreditation — the free business profile is the citation. High domain authority, and one of the listings Google's systems consistently cross-reference.
Free, neighborhood-scoped, and increasingly surfaced for 'near me' service queries. Claim the page, set the canonical NAP, and define your actual service neighborhoods.
These two feed hundreds of downstream directories, apps, and in-car navigation systems. Submit the canonical NAP once and let the ecosystem propagate it over the following weeks. Fixing upstream beats whack-a-mole downstream.
Home services: Angi, HomeAdvisor, Houzz. Medical: Healthgrades, Zocdoc. Legal: Avvo. Match the directory to the vertical — a plumber on Houzz beats a plumber on a generic web directory. Full breakdown by industry.
A real-world membership citation with a real backlink. Chambers verify you exist, which is exactly the trust signal aggregators can't provide. Most chambers list members for the cost of dues.
For Arizona businesses: AZ Registrar of Contractors listing (if licensed), local city business directories, and metro publications with business listings. Your state's licensing board profile is a citation — make sure its NAP matches.
PHCC, NRCA, ADA, state bar sections — whatever your trade's association is, the member directory is a citation with topical relevance. Audit the listing; associations are notorious for stale member records.
Carrier dealer locator, GAF contractor finder, Kohler showroom locator. If you're certified by a manufacturer, their locator page is a high-authority citation most competitors forget to check for accuracy.
500-directory submission packages create 480 citations you'll never be able to edit, on sites Google ignores. Fifteen accurate citations on real directories beat five hundred on link farms. Quality is the entire game here.
Search each core directory for your business name, phone number, AND address separately — duplicates often live under a name variant you'd never search for. The NAP Checker speeds up the cross-referencing.
Rebrands and relaunches leave orphan listings under the old name that split your citation profile in two. Claim each one and update it to the canonical name — don't create a fresh listing next to it. DIY citation audit guide walks through the process.
Search Google for your business name plus the OLD address in quotes — that surfaces every directory still showing it. Update each one to the new canonical address. A move without this sweep is the single most common cause of tanked map rankings.
Every listing showing a number other than the canonical phone gets updated. If the stray number still rings somewhere, forward it to the main line so no listing points at a dead end while you work through corrections.
Each directory has a process: Google supports merge requests via support, Yelp has a duplicate-report flow, aggregators accept suppression requests. An abandoned duplicate keeps circulating through the data ecosystem; a suppressed one stops.
Old call-tracking campaigns leave tracking numbers scattered across directories, and each one is a NAP conflict. Search for every tracking number you've ever used and replace it with the canonical local number. If you must track citation calls, use a provider that supports NAP-safe number swapping on your own site only.
Aggregator data drifts — user 'suggested edits,' scraper refreshes, and data-provider updates can silently overwrite correct listings. Fifteen minutes a quarter against your source-of-truth doc catches drift before Google does.
Before the change goes public: update the source-of-truth doc, then GBP, then core directories, then aggregators, then the old-address sweep from the cleanup section. Sequence matters — GBP first, aggregators before long-tail.
Data Axle and Foursquare refresh from multiple sources, and a bad source can re-pollute listings you already fixed. If a correction keeps reverting, the fix is upstream at the aggregator, not at the directory showing the symptom.
BrightLocal's citation tracker and Whitespark's local citation finder both monitor accuracy and surface new opportunities. For a single location, quarterly manual checks are honestly enough. BrightLocal vs Whitespark vs Yext compares the options.
New phone system, new suite number, rebrand, ownership change, or a map-pack ranking drop with no other explanation — each one means running this checklist again from the top. Citations are maintenance, not a one-time project.
Thirty consistent citations tell Google your business is exactly who and where it says it is. The $197 audit checks your actual citation profile — plus everything else holding back your map-pack visibility — and tells you which fixes matter first.