The 15-Minute NAP Audit Checklist

Most NAP guides describe what NAP is and why it matters. Few give you a stopwatch-friendly procedure for actually finding and fixing your own mismatches today. This is that procedure.

Time required: 15 minutes if you know your business well. Maybe 25 if you need to dig for old account credentials. Cost: zero. Tools: a browser, a notepad, your existing accounts on Google, Yelp, Yellow Pages, and a couple of others.

For the strategic context, see our NAP consistency 101 guide. For the full automated audit across all 7 priority directories, see our NAP audit feature page. Right now, here's the manual procedure.

Open a notepad. Write down the exact format you want your business to appear in everywhere:

• Business name (decide: trading name? Pty Ltd? Both? Pick one.)
• Street address (decide: "Street" or "St"? "Suite" or "Ste"? Pick one.)
• Suburb, state, postcode (use full state name or abbreviation — pick one)
• Country
• Phone (decide: "(03) 9123 4567" or "+61 3 9123 4567" or "03 9123 4567" — pick one)

This is your canonical NAP. Every listing should match it exactly.

Open business.google.com. Check that your listing shows: business name (matches canonical), address (matches), phone (matches), service area (if applicable, listed correctly), website URL (live, no broken links), hours, primary category (correct).

If any field is wrong, fix it now. GBP edits propagate to Google search within 24-72 hours typically.

For a comprehensive GBP optimisation walkthrough, see our GBP optimization guide.

Open your website. Check the footer of any page: does your NAP appear, and does it match canonical exactly? Open your contact page: same check. Check your homepage source code for LocalBusiness schema: does the address, phone, and name in the schema match canonical?

This is the easiest fix in the audit — you control your own site directly. Update the footer, the contact page, and the schema to match canonical. Push the change.

For schema specifics, see our local schema markup guide.

Search for your business on each:

• yelp.com.au — find your listing. If you haven't claimed it, claim it (free). Check all fields match canonical.
• yellowpages.com.au — same. Yellow Pages often has old phone numbers from before your business changed lines. Fix.
• truelocal.com.au — same. Less common to have, but check.

If any directory is missing your listing entirely, create one. If any directory has multiple listings (duplicates), merge or close the duplicates — Yelp has a "report duplicate" function.

Same procedure, less effort per site. Search for your business, claim or update as needed. These three are lower-traffic than Yelp/Yellow Pages but still feed the citation network.

For each: name, address, phone, website URL, business category, hours. Move on if everything matches.

Open your calendar. Schedule "NAP re-audit" for 6 weeks from today. The reason: aggregators sometimes overwrite your edits with old data after a few weeks, especially Yellow Pages and Foursquare. A re-check catches drift before it accumulates.

For ongoing automation, our NAP audit runs on a 14-day cadence with score history, claim URLs for every mismatch, and weighted scoring across all seven directories. Or run a free GEO audit for the adjacent AI-search check.

Don't panic. Prioritise by directory weight (see our local citations that matter guide). Fix Google + Website + Yelp first (closes 57% of gap). Schedule the rest across two more 15-minute sessions on different days.

The compounding effect is the win. A clean NAP profile across 7 directories takes about 45 minutes total to establish and 15 minutes per quarter to maintain. The ranking lift typically shows up 6-8 weeks after the first pass.

For the broader local SEO playbook this slots into, our 2026 local SEO checklist covers every adjacent fix from GBP setup to schema markup to review acquisition.