I am not sure what business name I should use.

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

• 
  Theo M: Local SEO:  ;I have a new client who I am doing a re-design on his website and also local SEO.  ;His business name is different on almost every citation (G+ Local, yp.com, Yelp, etc.)  ;There are also many duplicate listings due to the various names that were used.  ;(Their old webmaster put keywords into the biz name to try to help with SEO.  ;Oops!)  ;I know that I need to clean up all of the citations, including G+ Local, etc. and remove any duplicate listings.  ;I have found some great resources on MOZ and getlisted.org, as well as elsewhere to be able to do that.
  
  My question:  ;I am not sure what business name I should use.  ;The name registered with the state, name used for the phone number listing (it is an old name), a name that describes what they do (acupuncture - which would also help with SEO and tell people what kind of biz it is, this name is already being used in some citations), or any other suggestions?  ;I know that Google puts a lot of value in NAP consistency.  ;I did look at Google's guidelines regarding this, but it is still unclear what to do in this particular case.
  
  Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.  ;Thank you.
• 
  T Shepp: damn good question ; )
• 
  Theo M: +T Shepp ;Thanks.  ;Now I am just waiting for a damn good answer.  ;:-)
• 
  T Shepp: lol! Im surprised no one has tried at it yet.. Do you have a MOZ account? ;
• 
  Theo M: I signed into MOZ, but I can not post a question since I am not an Analytics subscriber.  ;If I were, then I would have posted there first.  ;I am sure that Miriam Ellis or someone else would have some good guidance on this one. Thanks for the suggestion.
• 
  T Shepp: +Theo M ; I have one. I will post it for you. If you want. And I can post the response, if it's cool with you.
• 
  Blake Smith: +Theo M I'd probably go with the name that is registered with the state, or whatever resembles their domain the most.
  
  Google is always changing and developing. I wouldn't be surprised if one day, Google uses publicly listed business registration numbers from government websites as a signal of a legitimate business (if they aren't already).