One overlooked principle that stifles many business’ efforts to optimize for the search engines is consistency.  The most important component that you should aim to keep consistent on your website and in all of your business listings, directory listings, social media accounts, etc. is your Name, Address and Phone Number (NAP).  While the Google algorithm is very powerful, any inaccuracies or differentiation across the Internet for your business can cause you to lose points in your affinity score.  Even worse, Google may simply flag different NAP’s for your business as completely different businesses.

You should focus on defining an NAP and then sticking with it.  If you’ve already been using an assortment of NAP’s for your business over the years, try to update any that you can and then move forward.  It’s not worth wasting time trying to correct every misstep from the past so long as you take corrective action and begin to create a much more consistent profile going forward.

So go ahead and do a quick check of all your core NAP listings like your website, Google Places, Yelp, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. and make sure that your NAP is consistent across all.  Once updated, you’ve just strengthened your position with Google which can only mean that over time, you’ll have a better chance of moving up in the rankings.