When I talk with traditional search engine optimizers the question I hear is, “What is the most important factor with Local search?” I think there are a lot of parallels with traditional and local search, but the one thing that is really important to remember, something that someone new to local search optimization often overlooks, is the importance of data standardization. Standardization tells Google, and in fact all the search engines, a consistency story from the seed provider to the end user. Consistency regarding your company name, address, phone number—from the bottom up.
Inconsistency Leads to Fragmentation
This is the most common error we see where inconsistency has lead to fragmentation for companies because sometimes they add “inc.” to their name or change their address from suite #123 to ste. 123. These differences water down your brand where Google is getting better at this, it still takes time to merge nuances. Look at the example below.
Change in business name, phone number and address are creating different listings, if merged together, this listing would be much more powerful with the combined feedback score, website citations. Until your local business is standardized, this fragmentation will continue to negatively affect your online local presence.
