Law firm NAP consistency rules — name, address, phone formatting that survives the Google entity-matching algorithm. Multi-location patterns included.
That's NAP consistency. It is the most boring discipline in local SEO and the one that most firms break by accident. Every variation in formatting is a signal to Google that this might be a different entity, and inconsistent NAP across a firm's citation footprint degrades the prominence signal it is trying to build.
Name, address, phone — the same on every directory, every social profile, every page of the firm's own site, every time.
Firm name should be identical everywhere — same suffix (LLC, LLP, P.C., PA), same use of ampersand vs. "and," same use of commas, same capitalization. "Smith, Jones & Associates LLP" is a different entity from "Smith Jones and Associates" to Google's matching algorithm.
Suite-number formatting is the most common inconsistency. "Suite 200" must be the same on every listing — not "Ste. 200" on one, "#200" on another, and "Suite 200" on a third. Street abbreviations same way ("St" vs "Street," "Ave" vs "Avenue"). City + state + ZIP same way. If the office is in a building with a known name, decide whether the building name is part of the address and use it consistently.
One main number, formatted identically everywhere. (555) 555-1234 on every listing, or 555-555-1234 on every listing — pick one and never deviate. Tracking numbers are a problem here: a tracking number on the GBP that doesn't match the main number on the citation footprint signals inconsistency. The fix is to use the main number as the GBP primary and run tracking through call-tracking software that records calls on the main number.
NAP audit pulls every existing citation, parses NAP from each, and produces a variance report. The output is a punch list — change A on listing X, update B on listing Y. The cleanup is mechanical but tedious, especially for firms with five-plus years of citations and one or two address moves in their history. A clean NAP across 75–150 citations (typical mid-size firm) is the baseline outcome.
NAP consistency breaks when firms move offices, when phone systems change, when a partner's name is added to the firm name, when a marketing person updates one citation and not the rest, and when third-party scrapers republish stale data. A quarterly NAP re-audit catches drift before it costs prominence.
Before a dollar is spent, you see exactly where your site leaks equity and which structural fixes compound.
A baseline NAP audit.
A field-level cleanup punch list.
Execution against the punch list (most agencies leave the actual update work to the firm; we handle it).
Quarterly NAP re-audit.
The result is a citation footprint where every listing matches the GBP exactly, and where Google's entity-matching reads one entity, not several.
See the same 30-point audit we ran on ourselves. Before a dollar is spent, you see exactly where your site leaks equity and which structural fixes compound. No vanity metrics, no obligation.
