Name, Address and Phone: Keep Them the Same Everywhere

Pick one exact version of your business name, address (or service area) and phone number. Put it on your Google Business Profile and your website first, then fix every other listing to match. Google gathers business information from several places, and when those places disagree, it can change what your profile shows.

People in local SEO call this NAP consistency, for name, address and phone. The work isn't hard. It's tedious, so it tends to get skipped, and an old phone number can sit on a directory for years after you stopped using it.

Why it matters to Google

Google's page on updates to your Business Profile says it gathers info from different sources, like user reports and licensed content. If those sources report that your profile info is incorrect or outdated, Google may update your profile. In the profile editor, info changed by Google shows up in blue.

Suggestions from the public work in a similar way. When someone suggests an edit that needs your review, Google says you have 4 days to accept or reject it. If you don't respond, Google may publish the change if other publicly available information supports it, and the example Google gives of that information is your business website.

So your website isn't only for customers. It's one of the places that can back up, or contradict, what your profile says. If your site still shows last year's suite number, it's backing up the wrong answer.

Why it matters to customers

The bigger cost is simpler. A homeowner finds your old number on a directory, calls it, and gets a disconnected line or a different business. A family checks your hours on an app that hasn't been updated since you changed them and finds your restaurant closed. They don't call to tell you. They call the next place.

Step 1: write down the one version

Before you touch any listing, decide on the exact text and save it in a note on your phone. Everyone who updates a listing copies from that note.

Name

Google's guidelines for representing your business say your name should reflect your real-world name, as used consistently on your storefront, website and stationery, and as known to customers.

No extras. The guidelines list what can't go in the name, including marketing taglines, hours, phone numbers, website addresses, service details and location details. "Rivera Plumbing" is fine. "Rivera Plumbing 24/7 Emergency Naperville" isn't, and Google says adding unnecessary information to the name could get the profile suspended.
LLC and Inc. Google treats legal terms like these as something you can include only with real-world proof, such as signage, business cards or invoices that consistently show them as part of the name. If your sign says "Rivera Plumbing", leave the LLC for your contracts.

Address

The address on your sign, with the suite or unit number on the second address line, which is how Google asks for it.
No P.O. boxes or virtual offices. The guidelines don't accept them for a profile.
Service-area businesses have no public address. Your consistent set is your name, your phone and the towns you serve. Where a directory lets you hide the street address, hide it there too. Details are in service-area businesses on Google Maps.

Pick one format and stick to it. If the sign says "Suite 4", it's "Suite 4" everywhere. But spend your time on the real mismatches first: an old address, an old number, an old name.

Phone

The guidelines ask for a local phone number instead of a central call center number whenever possible, and say the number must be under the business's direct control. Choose one main number for every listing. If you also have an office line or an after-hours line, put those on your own website, and keep the main number the same everywhere else.

Website address

Use the same version of your web address on every listing, starting with https. The guidelines say not to use links that send people to pages other than the business's own, including pages on social media sites, so the website field gets your real site, not your Facebook page.

Step 2: find every place your details appear

Start with the places you control, then the ones you can claim:

Your Google Business Profile and your website: the footer, the contact page, and the local business data in the page code, which we explain in LocalBusiness schema markup.
Other maps: Apple Maps through Apple Business Connect, and Bing Places.
Review and directory sites: Yelp, your Facebook page, Nextdoor, the Better Business Bureau.
Your trade's own places. For a contractor or plumber: the manufacturer's "find an installer" page, home service sites you're listed on, your trade association. For a restaurant: the delivery and reservation apps. For a shop: the store locators of the brands you carry.
Local ones: your chamber of commerce, your town's business directory, the sponsor page of the team you support.
Your own print: truck lettering, invoices, business cards, your email signature.

Then search for what you've forgotten. On Google, search your phone number in quotes, then your old number, then your old address, then any old business name. Put every result with wrong details on a list with three columns: the site, the login, and whether it's fixed.

Step 3: clean up duplicate Google profiles

Google's page on resolving duplicate profiles says you can have only one Business Profile for each business, and that a profile considered a duplicate won't show on Google Search or Maps. Duplicates come from things like a move, a name change, an old marketing company, or a customer who added your business to Maps on their own.

What Google says to do in each case:

You made a second one by mistake. Remove it from your account. Google warns that removing a duplicate removes all its content and linked managers, so make sure you remove the right one.
There are two on Maps for the same business. Suggest a merge on Google Maps. Google reviews every merge request. When two profiles merge, their reviews are combined, but replies to reviews may be lost.
Someone else owns a verified profile for your business, like a former partner or an agency you stopped working with. Request ownership. The current owner has 3 days to respond. If they don't, you may get the option to claim the profile, though Google says that option isn't always available.
You moved. Update the address on your existing profile. Don't create a new one.
You offer several services. List them on one profile. Google says not to create a separate profile for each service.

Step 4: when something changes, update in order

When you move, change your number or rename the business:

Update your Google Business Profile first.
Update your website the same day.
Work down your list: the other maps, then the directories, then your trade's sites.
Keep the old phone number forwarding to the new one for as long as you can.

After that, check your profile once a month for blue text, which means Google changed something, and for suggested edits waiting on you. The rest of the monthly routine is in our local SEO checklist.

Check your website's half

Our free website checker shows whether your phone number is a tap-to-call link, whether your site links to your Google listing and whether your local business data is in place, explained in plain English. It takes under a minute.