NAP (Name, Address, Phone) consistency is one of those local SEO ideas that's been repeated so often it's become received wisdom. "You must have your business name and phone number formatted identically across every directory or Google will penalise you." We sold that pitch ourselves for a while.
Then we measured. The data didn't support it.
The audit
In Q2 2025 we audited the citation profiles of 12 Built Local client trades using Whitespark and a manual check across 30 directories. We logged:
- Total citations.
- NAP consistency score (% of citations matching the canonical NAP exactly).
- Map-pack position for the client's primary keyword over the next 90 days.
- Three other signals: review count delta, GBP photo upload frequency, and on-page schema completeness.
We ran a simple correlation across the 12.
The results
- NAP consistency: weak correlation with rankings (r ≈ 0.18). One client at 62% consistency outranked one at 94%.
- Review velocity (reviews per 30 days): strong correlation (r ≈ 0.71).
- GBP photo uploads per week: moderate correlation (r ≈ 0.54).
- Schema completeness: moderate correlation (r ≈ 0.49).
The lesson: spend the citation-cleanup hour on getting one more review instead. The ROI is several times higher.
The baseline that matters
Citations are still a baseline signal. Having zero is bad. Having the right six is enough. Our minimum-viable citation list for UK trades:
- Google Business Profile (obvious, but make sure it's fully filled in).
- Bing Places (5% of UK search; takes 10 minutes).
- Apple Maps Business Connect (iPhone "near me" searches).
- Yell.com (still trusted in older demographics).
- One trade-specific directory (Checkatrade, MyBuilder, Bark).
- The client's Companies House registration with the correct trading name.
That's it. Six. Everything past this is diminishing returns.
What to do with the time you saved
The hour a week you'd otherwise spend cleaning up directory entries is better spent on:
- Asking the last week's customers for a Google review (see the review velocity field note).
- Uploading 5-10 fresh photos to GBP every week.
- Posting a GBP update with a recent job (200 words plus a photo, takes 10 minutes).
- Adding one piece of unique content to a service-area page on your local web design site.
Each of these moves the needle more than fixing the way your phone number is formatted on Hotfrog.
The exception
One scenario where citation cleanup genuinely matters: you've recently changed address or phone number, and the old details are still propagated across dozens of directories. In that case the inconsistency confuses Google specifically about *which* of your records is current. Fix the top six, leave the rest. Most of the long-tail directories scrape the top six anyway and self-correct within 6-9 months.
What this means for local web design for tradespeople
If a marketing agency quotes you £600 for "citation cleanup", ask what their next-best-spend recommendation is. If they don't have one stronger than citations, they're not paying attention. The 2026 marginal hour for a UK trade is spent on reviews, photos, schema and content - in that order. Citations are a check-it-once-a-year hygiene item.
Every Built Local build ships with the top six citations submitted as part of onboarding. After that we focus the £49/month on the things that actually move rankings. See the 30-point checklist for the full picture.