9 Common Business Listing Mistakes That Damage Your Local SEO

Inaccurate or incomplete business listings are one of the most widespread causes of poor local search performance and one of the least obvious. When your listing contains the wrong phone number, mismatched address details, or a vague business category, search engines lose confidence in your information and rank you lower as a result. AI-powered discovery platforms like Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity face the same problem: they pull from structured, consistent data, and businesses with messy listings simply do not get cited.

The nine mistakes below are the ones that do the most damage and each one has a clear fix.

Why Accurate Business Listings Matter More Than Ever

A business listing is a structured entry on a search platform, directory, or map service that records a business's name, address, phone number, category, hours, and other identifying details.

NAP consistency is the degree to which a business's Name, Address, and Phone number are identical across every platform where the business appears online.

Search engines treat your listings as evidence. When your business name, address, and phone number appear identically across Google, Apple Maps, Bing, Yelp, and local directories, search engines gain confidence that your business is legitimate and accurately located. That confidence translates into higher rankings in local search results and greater visibility in the map pack.

AI discovery platforms apply similar logic. Tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity construct local recommendations from structured, consistent data. Businesses with clean, verified listings across multiple platforms appear in those AI-generated answers. Businesses with errors, gaps, or contradictions do not.

The stakes are rising. According to Connectica, 45% of consumers used ChatGPT to find local businesses by January 2026 – up from just 6% a year earlier. Listing accuracy now affects two separate discovery channels simultaneously.

Mistake 1: Inconsistent NAP Data Across Platforms

NAP data refers to the combination of a business's Name, Address, and Phone number – the three pieces of information that search engines use to verify a business's identity and location across the web.

Inconsistent NAP data is the most common and most damaging listing mistake in local SEO. A single mismatched detail – "St." versus "Street", a missing suite number, or an old phone number still live on a directory – tells search engines that different sources are describing different entities. The result is reduced trust, lower rankings, and exclusion from AI-generated local answers.

Common causes include old addresses that were never updated after a move, phone numbers that changed, and business names formatted differently across platforms (e.g., "Lagos Fresh Bakery" on Google versus "Lagos Fresh Bakery Ltd." on a directory). Consistent local citation data helps search platforms match a business across directories and strengthens local authority over time.

How to fix it:

• Run a citation scan to identify every platform where your business is listed
• Compare name, address, and phone number on each against your master record
• Correct every discrepancy, starting with the highest-traffic platforms (Google, Apple Maps, Bing)
• Use a tool like NAP Management to maintain consistency as details change

Mistake 2: Duplicate Business Listings

Duplicate listings occur when a business appears more than once on the same platform – often created accidentally when a business moves, rebrands, or when a staff member creates a second profile without realizing one already exists. Each duplicate entry dilutes your SEO authority, confuses customers, and can cause Google to suppress both listings.

Duplicates are particularly common on Google Business Profile, where older listings from previous addresses sometimes remain active alongside the current one. A customer who finds the outdated listing calls a disconnected number or navigates to the wrong address and your business earns the distrust that follows.

How to fix it:

• Search your business name on Google Maps and major directories to surface any duplicates
• Request removal or merge duplicate Google Business Profile listings through the Google Business Profile support portal
• If you cannot claim a duplicate, flag it as a duplicate through the "Suggest an edit" option
• After resolving duplicates, monitor monthly for new ones, especially if your business name is generic

Mistake 3: Wrong or Vague Business Categories

Your primary business category is one of the strongest ranking signals in local search. Choosing a category that is too broad – "Clinic" instead of "Physiotherapy Clinic", or "Lawyer" instead of "Personal Injury Lawyer" – means your listing competes for the wrong searches and loses to competitors who chose precisely. According to BrightLocal, category errors appear in nearly every local SEO audit, across every industry.

The problem compounds in AI search. When a user asks an AI tool to recommend a specialist, the AI reads category data as a signal of relevance. A vague category produces a vague match or no match at all.

How to fix it:

• Review your primary category and select the most specific option that accurately describes your core service
• Add up to nine secondary categories to capture related searches (Google Business Profile allows ten total)
• Check what categories your top local competitors use – this reveals the specific terms Google associates with your service type
• Review categories quarterly, as Google regularly adds and renames options

Mistake 4: Unverified Business Profiles

An unverified Google Business Profile has significantly less visibility than a verified one. Google uses verification as a basic trust signal – without it, your listing may not appear in map results at all, and you cannot edit core details like your address, phone number, or hours.

Many small businesses, particularly newer ones and those in emerging markets across Africa, the Philippines, and Southeast Asia, create a Google Business Profile but never complete verification. The listing sits there, incomplete and unranked, while competitors with verified profiles capture the searches that should belong to them.

How to fix it:

• Log into Google Business Profile and check your verification status – a verified profile shows a blue checkmark
• If unverified, initiate the process through Google's verification flow; options include postcard, phone, email, or video verification depending on your business type
• For businesses that have difficulty with postcard verification, there are alternative verification methods available that do not require a physical mail delivery

Mistake 5: Missing or Inaccurate Business Hours

Missing business hours are a direct cause of lost customers and reduced rankings. When hours are absent, Google displays "Hours not available" – which signals an incomplete profile and pushes the listing down in results. When hours are wrong, customers arrive at a closed business and leave a negative review. Both outcomes damage local SEO performance.

Google Business Profile supports special hours for holidays and seasonal periods. Most businesses set their regular hours once and never update them, leaving incorrect hours live during public holidays, seasonal closures, or period-specific changes – exactly when customers rely on that information most.

How to fix it:

• Complete your regular weekly hours in full – no gaps, no placeholder entries
• Add public holiday hours in advance using the "Special Hours" feature in Google Business Profile
• Update hours immediately if your operating schedule changes, even temporarily
• Check that your hours match what appears on your website and all other directory listings

Mistake 6: Ignoring Customer Reviews

Reviews are a confirmed ranking factor for local search. Businesses with a higher volume of recent, positive reviews consistently outperform those with few or no reviews, even when other signals are comparable. Ignoring reviews – whether by not asking for them or not responding to them – is a self-imposed handicap.

Unanswered negative reviews are particularly damaging. A business that receives a critical review and never responds communicates to prospective customers that it does not care. Google interprets review engagement as a signal of business activity, which contributes to ranking. Businesses with consistent review engagement receive more trust signals from search engines and more confidence from prospective customers.

How to fix it:

• Ask satisfied customers to leave a review immediately after a transaction or service – timing matters
• Respond to every review, positive and negative, within 48 hours
• Keep negative review responses factual, professional, and solution-focused; never argue publicly
• Monitor review volume across Google, Facebook, TripAdvisor, and industry-specific platforms relevant to your category

Mistake 7: Incomplete Business Profile Fields

A complete Google Business Profile receives significantly more engagement than an incomplete one. According to Connectica, complete profiles get 7x more clicks, and customers are 2.7x more likely to trust a business with a fully filled profile. Yet many businesses leave critical fields empty: no description, no services listed, no photos, no attributes.

In AI-powered search, incomplete profiles are effectively invisible. AI systems build local recommendations from structured data. Fields like services, descriptions, and attributes are the structured data that AI systems read – empty fields mean your business provides nothing for those systems to extract and cite.

Destinali helps businesses identify and close these profile gaps through listing audits and local visibility tools designed for SMBs across African markets and beyond.

How to fix it:

• Fill every available field in your Google Business Profile: description, services, attributes, products, and the Q&A section
• Add a minimum of ten high-quality photos; update with new images at least monthly
• Write a business description that includes your primary service, your city or service area, and a clear value statement
• Use Google Posts to publish updates, offers, or news at least twice per month – this signals to Google that your business is active

Mistake 8: No Structured Data on Your Website

Structured data is machine-readable code added to a webpage that tells search engines and AI systems exactly what a business is, where it is located, what it offers, and how to contact it.

Without structured data (also called schema markup), your website gives search engines and AI tools a wall of text to interpret rather than clearly labeled information. Google uses structured data to populate knowledge panels, AI Overviews, and voice search answers. Businesses without it are less likely to appear in any of these placements.

The most relevant schema type for local businesses is LocalBusiness schema, which encodes your name, address, phone number, opening hours, and service categories in a format that search engines read directly. Many businesses – especially restaurants, clinics, hotels, and service providers – operate without any schema at all, leaving AI-generated recommendations to competitors who have implemented it.

How to fix it:

• Generate a LocalBusiness JSON-LD schema block for your website using the free schema generator from AuthorityStack.ai – no technical skill required
• Add FAQ schema to pages that answer common customer questions
• Add Service schema for each distinct service your business offers
• Validate your schema using Google's Rich Results Test before publishing

Mistake 9: Not Tracking Your Local Search Performance

Businesses that do not measure their local SEO performance cannot tell whether their listings are working, improving, or declining. Without tracking, a drop in rankings goes unnoticed for weeks. A competitor's rise goes unchallenged. Fixes applied after previous audits cannot be evaluated for effectiveness.

Local rank tracking works differently from standard SEO tracking because results vary by location. A restaurant in Victoria Island, Lagos, ranks differently for "restaurants near me" depending on whether the searcher is one block away or three kilometers out. City-level tracking misses that variation. True local visibility measurement requires a grid-based approach that shows rankings across specific neighborhoods and service areas – the kind of granular local ranking data that reveals visibility gaps a single keyword check would never surface.

How to fix it:

• Set up location-based rank tracking that monitors performance across your specific service area, not just one city-level result
• Track the same keywords your customers use – service type plus neighborhood, district, or city name
• Review ranking data monthly and correlate changes with listing updates, new reviews, or competitor activity
• Compare your visibility against two or three direct local competitors to identify where you are losing ground

Frequently Asked Questions

What Are the Most Common Business Listing Mistakes That Hurt Local SEO?

The most common mistakes are inconsistent NAP data across directories, duplicate listings on the same platform, wrong or overly broad business categories, and incomplete Google Business Profile fields. Each error reduces search engine confidence in your business information, which directly lowers your ranking in local and map results.

How Does Inconsistent NAP Data Damage Local Search Rankings?

Inconsistent NAP data damages local rankings because search engines use Name, Address, and Phone number to verify that multiple listings refer to the same real-world business. When the phone number on Google differs from the one on a directory listing, search engines treat the discrepancy as a trust signal failure and deprioritize the listing accordingly.

What Happens If My Business Has Duplicate Listings on Google?

Duplicate Google Business Profile listings split your SEO authority between two entries instead of concentrating it on one. Google may suppress both listings, display outdated information, or show competing entries to the same customer. Duplicates also confuse customers who may call a disconnected number or navigate to a previous address.

Why Does Choosing the Wrong Business Category Matter?

The primary business category is one of the strongest ranking signals in the Google local pack. A vague or incorrect category – such as "Store" instead of "Electronics Repair Shop" – means your listing does not appear for the specific searches your customers are running. More specific categories consistently outperform broader ones in local search results.

Does Structured Data Really Affect Local Search Visibility?

Yes. Structured data encodes your business details in a format that search engines and AI systems can read directly without interpreting prose. Google uses LocalBusiness schema to populate knowledge panels, AI Overviews, and voice search results. Businesses without schema markup are less likely to appear in any of these high-visibility placements.

How Do Unanswered Reviews Affect Local Rankings?

Unanswered reviews signal to Google that a business is inactive or unengaged, which reduces the business's ranking strength. Negative reviews that receive no response also damage conversion rates – prospective customers read review responses as evidence of how a business treats its customers. Both the volume and recency of reviews, combined with response activity, contribute to local search rankings.

How Often Should I Audit My Business Listings?

A full listing audit – covering NAP consistency, duplicate detection, category accuracy, and profile completeness – should be conducted at least once per quarter. High-volume businesses or those operating across multiple locations benefit from monthly audits. Any time your address, phone number, or business name changes, an immediate audit across all platforms is essential.

Can an Incomplete Google Business Profile Hurt My AI Search Visibility?

Yes. AI-powered platforms like Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity construct local recommendations from structured, complete data. An incomplete profile – missing services, hours, description, or photos – gives AI systems less information to work with. Businesses with complete profiles that also include structured data on their websites are significantly more likely to appear in AI-generated local recommendations.

Final Checklist: Audit Your Listings Now

Run through this checklist to identify the highest-priority issues with your current listings:

• NAP consistency: Check your business name, address, and phone number on Google, Apple Maps, Bing, Yelp, and your top three local directories – all must match exactly
• Duplicates: Search your business name on Google Maps and request removal or merging of any duplicate profiles
• Category accuracy: Confirm your primary Google Business Profile category is the most specific option available; add relevant secondary categories
• Verification status: Confirm your Google Business Profile shows a verified checkmark
• Hours completeness: Fill in all weekly hours and add special hours for upcoming public holidays
• Review engagement: Respond to any unanswered reviews, then build a process for responding within 48 hours going forward
• Profile completeness: Fill every available field – description, services, attributes, photos, Q&A
• Schema markup: Add LocalBusiness JSON-LD schema to your website and validate it

These eight fixes address the majority of listing errors that suppress local rankings. Start with NAP consistency and duplicate removal – they deliver the fastest, most measurable results.

Small businesses that list their business for free on Destinali can create a free listing and improve their discoverability across local search from one place.