Ideally, businesses flourish when they provide excellent customer service and maintain their online presence on a regular basis. However, negative ranking factors such as inconsistent NAP information and bad customer reviews are easy to reprimand and eliminate inconsistencies.
However, we have to be realistic and examine negative ranking factors to understand how local businesses can avoid potential boo-boos, so they can prevent search engine penalties from forming.
Negative Ranking Factors Detrimental to Local Businesses SEO
Missing Physical Address: When an actual physical address on the website or Google My Business listing is missing, local SEO isn’t very happy. In order for a business to rank in local search page results, a physical address verifies the company is legitimate, without it Google doesn’t consider it a real company.
Missing Local Phone Number: Without a phone number or listing different locations with the same phone number doesn’t look good and the credibility of the business goes to waste.
Inconsistent NAP: If search engines are unable to detect inconsistent NAP information, that business will get lost in the shuffle and not rank in search engines. Do not put NAP information on images or photos, because Google cannot read text on graphics. Create a simple index of the company website and keep NAP information consistent across all web pages, social media channels, and websites.
Google My Business Mistakes: Google My Business is content sensitive, which means it literally takes your word for it. When incorrect information is displayed like the wrong phone number or the company is filed into the wrong category, it hurt the company’s credibility resulting the website’s ranking to decrease. If a business changes its name, phone number, or address, always update the NAP information on Google My Business, websites, and social media channels to prevent SEO penalties.